


Ash and Bone

by Kei (adakie)



Series: The Best of Intentions [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gaster Blaster Sans, Gaster Blasters, Gen, Goopy W. D. Gaster, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Manipulation, Soulless au, graphic transformation, sentient blasters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7870417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adakie/pseuds/Kei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(sequel to Lost and Found)<br/>Once there was a scientist known as W. D. Gaster who changed life in the underground forever.  He made wonderful, terrible, impossible things until he fell into his own creation and was erased from existence.  Forgotten, but not gone.  With the barrier breaking, his scattered pieces have found a way back into reality to reclaim his life and his creations ... even if those creations don't want to be claimed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place after the end of Lost and Found. In fact, the prologue (or chapter 1 I guess) takes place during the LaF epilogue, so you're going to be more than a bit confused if you haven't already read that one. 
> 
> Okay, that said ... it’s gasterblaster time and I am HYPED! Even if this is just the prologue and you can’t tell it’s a GB story yet ( … or can you?). Thanks so much for checking this out, thanks to everyone you read and enjoyed LaF and my other work, and I really hope you guys like this one. :3

_‘Papyrus, wake up.’_

Papyrus gasped, eye sockets flying open as he jolted awake.  His soul raced, tingling magic flooding his tense, shaking body.  Another nightmare.  It was hardly unusual for him to have bad dreams, though he rarely remembered what had frightened him.  This time proved to be no exception.  Only a few scattered details remained, like fleeting glimpses of a sad smile he knew he should remember yet did not, but try as he might even that was quickly fading from his memory.  

He lay still for a few moments, hands pressed over his chest, trying to calm himself as he stared up at the familiar ceiling of his room at the Snowed Inn.  This place had become something like home ever since he and Sans arrived in the little town at the edge of the underground, in no small part because they’d simply had nowhere else to go.  It wasn’t much, to be honest, just a small, sparsely furnished space on the ground floor with a tiny closet, a wooden dresser, easy access to a communal bathroom, and a mercifully soft bed that was just big enough to fit the pair of them without either brother getting pushed to the floor or elbowed in the ribs.  There was barely enough space for the brothers to live in, but they were grateful for it just the same.  

Papyrus strained to hear any kind of noise from the hallway, wondering if it was time for the woman who’d taken them in to start her daily rounds, but instead of soft pawsteps gliding across wooden floors he heard the strained breathing and tiny gasps of someone caught in the grasp of a night terror.  It seemed that he wasn’t the only one who’d had a rough night.  “Sans?” he called, his voice just barely more than a whisper.  “Sans, wake up.”

Propping himself up with one elbow, he reached over and gave his brother a gentle shake.  Sometimes that was enough to rouse the older boy and free him from the terrors that claimed his mind in the night, but not this time.  He didn’t like the way Sans trembled, letting out painted sounding whimpers as he clutched at his face, sweat dripping off his skull and soaking the pillow beneath him.  Allowing himself a moment of worry, Papyrus shook the smaller skeleton again and called his name.  At first there was no change, and he was afraid that he might have to yell and risk waking the other residents of the Inn.  It was either that or strike his sibling, but he could never bring himself to do that no matter the circumstances.  But then, just as he was about to risk raising his voice, Sans woke with a strangled gasp.  

Papyrus backed away, expecting his brother to bolt upright like he himself had, but Sans didn’t spring upright or even flail about as he woke.  Instead he stayed where he was, shaking so hard that the other boy could hear the faint sound of his bones rattling, eye sockets wide and empty save for a single blue light which pulsed with barely restrained power.  Bony fingertips dug at his skull, hooking into one of his sockets.  Blue light washed over them both, tinting the cheery yellow bedspread a sickly green.  The very air tingled with magic.  Papyrus heard it sparking and hissing around them, underscored by a very different kind of hiss.  

With a hesitance that bordered on dread, Papyrus looked up.  It was no surprise what he found.  Hovering over the bed were three magical constructs, powerful weapons unconsciously summoned by his brother to fight off whatever nightmare vision he’d seen.  They were shaped like beastly skulls, heads sloped back in pointed crests and long muzzles full of wickedly sharp teeth.  They chittered and clicked, glowing eye lights roaming in their wide, dark sockets as they searched for a danger which didn’t exist.  Sparks of light danced between their teeth, glimmering magic fire just waiting to be ignited.  

This was bad.  It was certainly not the first time Sans had ever summoned the blasters in his sleep, but without any sort of direction from their summoner, the confused, frightened creatures didn’t know where to turn.  If something startled Sans enough that he sent them a frantic command to fire, they would unleash the full fury of their deadly magic.  The seemingly simple solution was to make sure that Sans was well and truly awake, but it wasn’t quite so simple.  The small skeleton lay rigid on the bed, paralyzed as if held down by unseen hands.  His normal broad grin was clenched into a tight, too sharp grimace and his single ringed pupil was blown wide and unseeing.  Waves of bright blue magic poured from his eye socket like flame.  Papyrus grasped his wrists and pulled his hands away as gently as he could, wincing faintly at the squealing scrape of bone on bone.  Somehow Sans had managed to leave long scratches on his skull.  Papyrus would have been scared of the mysterious marks if it hadn’t happened too many times before.  At least this time there weren’t any bite marks on him.  Gathering his sibling in his arms, the younger boy turned his attention to the blasters that floated over the bed like a deadly halo.  His brother was in no shape to command them, but he wasn’t the only one with that ability.  

“You’re not needed right now,” he told the hissing constructs, desperately trying to sound confident and assured when he certainly didn’t feel it, “go away.”  He knew they should listen.  The blasters were a shared attack of sorts, a unique magical weapon that both of the siblings could call on, and they always obeyed his commands regardless of which of the brothers had summoned them.  This time though, trapped between his authoritative words and his older brother’s frazzled emotional state, the sparking skulls did not know which way to turn.  They trembled, glowing eyes roaming the space as they clicked and chattered.  

“There’s no danger here, so go back to where you came from.  Go on, shoo.”  Papyrus waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, but his commands weren’t having the sort of affect he’d hoped they would.  The blasters wanted to obey, glancing down at him with an almost frightened glint in their glowing eyes, but then something would spark in them and they were growling once more, searching every corner of the room for dangers that did not exist.  

Only one thing would make the creatures go away, and that was for their summoner to release them.  The problem was, Sans wasn’t exactly aware enough to do so.  Papyrus shifted his grasp until he could turn his brother’s face towards him.  He felt fresh scratches beneath his palms, the short, rough gouges marring otherwise smooth bone.  He stared into mismatched sockets, blank and burning, and tuned his own magic until it sang a radiant blue.  

“Sans, everything’s alright.  It was just a dream.”  He reached out with a  song that was beyond words, calling on hazy memories of a lullaby from long ago.  Another soul lost in a sea of chaos hesitantly resonated with his own.  “Call them off.”

“ … p-pap?” Sans said at last, his voice soft and shaky.  He blinked and the pale white lights of his eyes returned, perhaps a little smaller and dimmer than they should be but at least they were present once more.  He glanced up, taking in the trio of blasters which stared back at him, and winced ever so slightly.  With a gesture that would have seemed casual if his hand hadn’t still been trembling, he dismissed the living weapons which dispersed amidst a chorus of grateful sounding rumbles.  Without the magical connection he shared with the constructs, the blue energy radiating from the older skeleton’s eye dispersed as well and shadows reclaimed the room.  Sans glanced up at Papyrus, the space between them lit only by the pale glow of his eye lights, and tried unsuccessfully to hide his guilt.  “sorry 'bout that.”

“It’s quite alright brother.”  Papyrus had his own fair share of nightmares, though the dreams that plagued Sans were, in his opinion, far more than anyone’s 'fair share’.  “Do you, umm, want to talk about it?”

Uncertainty flickered across the smaller skeleton’s features, but it was gone so quickly that Papyrus couldn’t be sure he hadn’t just imagined it.  “thanks, but no thanks.  don’t even remember what i was dreaming about anyway.”  

Sans was lying.  Papyrus knew that Sans was lying, and he suspected that Sans knew that he knew.  Too many layers of false smiles and little white lies meant to protect one another had tangled the pair in a web of hollow denial that they could not escape from.  Papyrus thought that perhaps he should say something and break the chain now before it became impossible to do so and drag the ugly, painful truth out into the light.  

He didn’t.  

“Alright.  But, if you do ever want to talk, you know I’ll always listen.”

“i know.”  The shadows finally seemed to lift from Sans, his smile melting into something soft and genuine.  “you’re the best, bro.”

Sans dragged himself out of bed, switching on the bedside lamp with a glimmer of magic and a casual flick of the wrist.  He yawned and stretched, arching his spine to chase away the stiffness his uneasy sleep had left behind.  It wasn’t like him to get up so willingly in the mornings.  Most days, Papyrus had to all but drag his brother out of bed and shove him out the door to start the day.  He should have been happy to see the smaller skeleton getting ready for work without prompting, but it just struck him as wrong.

“It’s still early.  You could go back to sleep.”

“nah, it’s fine.  i should probably get an early start anyway.  you know, make the rounds and see if anyone’s got a job for me before I have to open up the stand.”  Sans slipped his jacket on and tugged the hood up over his head, hiding his face in its shadow.  The scratches on his skull were shallow and would heal quickly, though he would look a bit strange for a few days.  

The truth was, even without having to pay more than the bare minimum of rent, though it made Papyrus feel awful to take advantage of the innkeeper’s kind heart that way, they were running dangerously low on funds.  All across the underground, young monsters were on break from school.  While that did mean a bit more traffic at his brother’s hotdog stand during the day, it also meant that there was suddenly a lot more competition for the odd jobs that he and Sans relied on to bolster their income.  When times got lean like this, the other skeleton fell back on some old tricks that Papyrus sorely wished he wouldn’t.  He didn’t mind going without, they’d certainly done plenty of that in the past, and anything was better than seeing his brother trudge back to the inn long after most monsters had turned in for the night, eyes dark and hollow, gritting his teeth in a smile so forced it was painful even to look at.  

“Alright,” Papyrus said as he too clamored out of bed.  “I’ll go with you.”

“you don’t have to do that.  besides, you were gonna help around the inn today, right?”

“W-well, yes,” he muttered, “it’s laundry day today.”

“sounds like a _load_ of work,” Sans said, his eternal smile stretching into a broad grin, “you’d better get an early start too or the whole day will be a _wash_.”  His eye lights shone a bit brighter when Papyrus let out a theatrical groan, the younger brother still smiling despite himself at the admittedly awful joke.  Terrible puns always cheered Sans up, especially when they earned him a big reaction.  He chuckled to himself as he headed for the door.  “hate to _hang you out to dry_ but i’ve got places to be.  i’ll be back tonight after the dinner rush, okay?”

“I’ll be here,” Papyrus said, doing his best not to let his disappointment over the fact that he wasn’t likely to see his sibling all day show.  It wasn’t as if they couldn’t both get by just fine without the other around, but the morning’s events had left him a bit, well, rattled.  He would much rather have been able to keep an eye on Sans.  Perhaps he could swing by the hotdog stand for lunch without it being too suspicious.  

If Sans saw the faint signs of unease, he didn’t comment on them.  He stopped by the door, hand poised on the handle, and looked back over his shoulder with a warm smile.  “love ya baby bro.”

Papyrus eagerly returned the sentiment and waved goodbye as his brother left.  Unlike his sibling, he took his time getting ready, trying to look as presentable as possible despite the fact that most of their possessions were other people’s castoffs.  He tied the laces on his boots, donned a heavy coat to protect him from Snowdin’s constant wintry chill, and draped a soft red scarf that he’d had as long as he could remember around his neck.  He always felt better with his scarf close by.  

He met the inn’s owner, still groggy without her morning coffee, in the hall and she sent him off with a small bag of coins and a shopping list.  Papyrus was happy to go.  Running errands for the woman was one of his favorite ways in which the skeletons had earned their keep before they’d found something that passed for real jobs.  She had been so eager to help them and so understanding when they had little to offer in return that sometimes he wondered if she knew how old they truly were.  At least the rest of the town hadn’t caught on.  It was easier than he’d expected to pretend that he was an adult.  At first it had felt like a lie, but Sans reminded him that, thanks to how slowly skeletons age compared to most other monsters, they’d already been alive long enough to be considered adults even if they hadn’t quite gotten there yet physically.  Plus he was finally tall enough to convincingly pass as a grown up, which was an advantage he had over his much shorter brother.

It was odd how little Sans had changed, at least in appearance.  That could have just been something he’d inherited from their parents, but given how tall Papyrus himself was getting to be, he rather doubted it.  No, he had his own suspicions as to the cause of his brother’s rather lacking stature.  Though most of his childhood memories were oddly disjointed, one of the things Papyrus remembered clearly was how frail his brother had been.  Whenever any hint of illness started going around he’d been among the first to catch it.  A fall that anyone else would walk away from could break his bones.  Even a simple cold could be life threatening.  It hadn’t been easy, not for any of them, and he recalled too many sleepless, tear filled nights wondering if his brother would wake up the next morning.  Now, however, things were different.  Sans was still fragile, that much was inescapable, but he was doing so much better than before.  Now, so long as he was careful, he could do all the things other monsters did.  Papyrus knew that his recovery had something to do with a special medicine, a substance he vaguely remembered as red and oddly hot, but thinking about it made him uncomfortable.  It didn’t really matter since Sans didn’t take the substance anymore, at least that’s what he told himself.  Besides, there were plenty of other things that he couldn’t recall the details of which were far more pressing.  Their father, for example.  

The man who’d raised him hadn’t been his real father, he remembered that much.  Their real parents had died when he was just a baby, Sans had told him so one night when he’d worked up the courage to ask, but the man he knew he should remember had taken them in and given them a new home.  Papyrus didn’t know what happened to him, only that he was gone.  He didn’t recall what sort of person their father had been, only that he had loved the children he’d taken in and they had loved him in return.  He couldn’t remember what the man looked like and, as if to add insult to injury, the only pictures of him that remained were all blurred beyond recognition.  Somehow the vague impressions he’d been left with hurt more than if he’d forgotten everything about the man.  He could recall just enough to know what he was missing.  Papyrus used to sit for hours struggling to remember even the simplest details about his father and the life they’d had before coming to Snowdin.  All he’d managed to do was give himself a migraine, which while unpleasant to say the least wasn’t nearly as bad as the dreams that plagued him for days, even weeks, after.  When he’d asked Sans about the repeating nightmare, the older boy had told him in a small, shaken voice that the person he was dreaming about was gone and he should just try to forget.  Sometimes though, Papyrus still dreamed about the tall stranger with the blurred, broken face and empty eyes.  

The young skeleton trudged through the snow, following well worn paths trampled down by the countless steps of other monsters.  He rubbed at the faint ridge of raised bone on his arm as he walked.  It was a scar left behind by a break he could not quite remember receiving but would never forget dealing with.  Sans had fussed over him for months, helping him re-splint it often and outright insisting that he not lift anything even remotely heavy.  His brother had worked hard to provide for them both when he could not.  For so long, the injury had made Papyrus feel weak and useless, but now that it was healed, his arm was stronger than ever.  If only the rest of him felt that strong.  He wanted to do more than just help around the inn and bring home pocket change from whatever jobs he could find around town.  He wanted to make a place for himself in this community, hoping that perhaps that might make it feel more like he thought home should feel.  He wanted to protect his brother the way Sans had always protected him, if not from the nightmares and whatever flashes of memory fueled them then from the day to day hazards that made even doing his job dangerous for the smaller skeleton.  He needed to prove to himself that he was useful, needed, and wanted.

Papyrus heard the familiar rumble of rock in the distance.  A ceiling quake, perhaps?  No, it wasn’t loud enough to be something that series.  The ground beneath his feet hadn’t even trembled.  A rock slide then.  They were a fairly common occurrence in Waterfall, after all, and the entrance to those dark caverns was fairly close by.  He hoped that Sans was far away from the Waterfall area and already setting up shop in New Home, but even if he wasn’t, a rock slide like that would be easy to avoid for someone who could teleport as quickly as his brother did.  The heavy scrape and thud of tumbling boulders echoed off distant cavern walls, but Papyrus hardly took notice of it.  At least, until he heard a scream.

The shrill voice of a frightened child cut through the muted thunder of the rock slide.  Someone was in trouble.  Papyrus and Sans had been told when they’d first come to Snowdin that if they ever found someone in trouble they should run and tell the royal guard as quickly as they could.  With the various guard stations scattered along the path between Snowdin itself and the ruins, as well as the main guard house near the center of town, they were never far from someone who could help.  Papyrus knew that the closest guard station was a quick jog back towards the inn.  In no time he could find one of the strong canine monsters who served as Snowdin’s protectors.  That was what he should have done, so it came as a bit of a surprise even to himself that he started running in the other direction.  The tall skeleton sprinted towards the sound of the cave in, long legs carrying him across the snowy terrain with ease.  He stopped only for a moment when an unexpected patch of ice sent him skidding into a snowpoof, but he picked himself back up and was running again before the sting of the fall even registered, dashing through narrowing caverns and into the dark shadows of Waterfall.  His soul shuddered when the shouting stopped, the fear that he might arrive too late and find only dust threatening to steal his breath, but the silence was mercifully broken a moment later.

“Hey, it’s okay,” came a woman’s voice, “I’m gonna get you out of there, so just sit tight.”

Papyrus nearly slid on the wet ground as he stumbled to a halt.  The telltale signs of rock slides littered the cavern, large stones piled up awkwardly under gaping holes.  Between him and the wreckage stood a tall fish woman her bright blue scales and flaming red hair making her stand out against the dark, drab tones of her surroundings.  She quickly but carefully made her way through the disaster zone of fallen rock, tossing some of the rubble aside to clear a path.  Papyrus saw a flash of yellow amidst the wreckage.  He moved closer as well, careful stepping over a pile of stones the size of basket balls, to get a better look.  Sure enough, he saw a young lizard monster trapped under what looked like a massive slab of what had once been the cave ceiling.  The only thing that had saved the small child was a boulder which now supported half of the huge rock.  Though the kid was trapped in that small pocket of space, crouched low to avoid  hitting their head on the slanted sheet of rock, at least they appeared to be unharmed.  Before Papyrus could even think to offer his help, the fish woman took hold of the other end of the fallen slab and heaved it upright.  Her muscular arms shook under its weight, yet still she was able to hoist the heavy stone up above her head.  The child stared up at her, awestruck by the impressive display.  

“Y'alright there kid?” the woman asked, the strain of suspending such a a heavy burden clear in her otherwise cocky tone.

“Yes sir!  I mean, ma'am!  I mean … yes!”  The kid got to their feet and scampered out from under the stone that had come so close to ending their life.  “Thanks so much miss … uh … “

“Name’s Undyne,” the fish woman said, triumphant in the wake of the successful rescue.  She tossed her end of the fallen slab a bit higher into the air, grunting with exertion from the effort it took, and stepped back as it came crashing to the ground.  The cavern trembled from the impact, a small shower of pebbles raining down from above.  Undyne turned towards the child she’d saved, hands at her hips in a pose that, to Papyrus at least, looked nothing short of heroic.  “Run back home, okay?  This place is too dangerous to play in right now.”  She gave the kid a friendly slap on the back, chuckling when they staggered forward a few steps.  “And keep yourself out of trouble!”

“I will!”  The small monster yelled back.  They practically bounced as they ran past, speeding along the tunnels back towards Snowdin.  “Ooh wow, wait till sis hears about this!”

Undyne let out a hearty laugh as the child ran out of sight.  She brushed rock dust off of her hands, leaving streaky gray smudges on her pants.  “Ya need somethin’ stretch?”

Papyrus jolted in surprise when she looked up at him, a wide smirk showing off her sharp teeth.  He hadn’t even realized that she’d seen him, let alone that she deemed him worth talking to.  “That was amazing,” he gasped, more than a little starstruck.

“Aah, not really,” she said, though her wide, toothy grin and the faint blush of color that dusted her scales gave away how much his words had truly meant to her.  “Just doin’ my job is all.  A guardsman’s gotta be ready for anything, even quakes.”

“You’re a member of the royal guard?” he asked, all but beaming at the woman.  “Wowie!”

Undyne snickered at him, sounding pleased and perhaps even a little embarrassed.  “You’re a fan, I take it?”

“Ooh yes!  They’re all so brave and strong, and they protect everyone.”  The only other guardsmen Papyrus had ever seen, or at least the only ones he remembered seeing, were canine monsters.  While the dog pack of Snowdin did a good job keeping the peace and protecting their little corner of the underground from the threat of humans, they were also a rather tight knit group the likes of which it seemed impossible to even dream of joining.  And yet, Papyrus had always wanted to.  “I wish I could be like that.”

“Who’s sayin’ ya can’t?”

“Ooh, well … I … “  Objectively speaking, there were plenty of reasons why he couldn’t join the royal guard.  He wasn’t a dog like the other Snowdin guards, but then neither was Undyne.  He wasn’t an adult yet, but he was close enough.  He wasn’t strong like them, but maybe … maybe he could be.  “Could I really?”

“Sure!” the fish woman said cheerfully, striding forward in order to sling an arm around his shoulders. “Nothing’s stoppin’ ya. You wanna join the royal guard?  Just go for it!”

“Okay!” Papyrus cheered, caught up in the exuberant confidence that Undyne radiated, only to realize moments later that he still had no clue exactly what he was meant to be doing.  “Umm, how?”

“Well, you could do what I did.  Just train like mad!”  Undyne flexed her powerful arms, unintentionally dragging Papyrus into an awkward crouch.  “Keep working till you’re the toughest, strongest, most unstoppable monster around, then they’ll have to let you join!”

“That sounds … “  Like a lot of hard work.  Really difficult.  Practically impossible.  “LIKE A GREAT IDEA!”

The woman let out another loud laugh and patted him on the back so hard his bones rattled.  “That’s the spirit!  Hey, I gotta get started cleanin’ up this mess, mind letting the Snowdin guys know what happened out here?”

“Sure thing!” Papyrus said, feeling more energized than he had in weeks.  If she’d asked him to run all the way to New Home and back he likely would have jumped at the task.  

“Thanks pal.”  Undyne released him at last, regarding the skeleton with veiled pride.  “You’re gonna do great, I just know it.”

It took longer to report to the guard station than Papyrus had thought it would.  That had a lot to do with the fact that the guard on duty had been Lesser Dog, who, while always helpful and eager to please, wasn’t all that good at speaking the common language of monsters.  By the time he’d gotten the errands done and returned to the inn, Papyrus had lost half the day.  Despite the innkeeper’s reassurances that helping the royal guard was more important than laundry, Papyrus had felt so bad for his absence that he’d insisted on not only finishing the task for her but doing the remaining cleaning as well.  By the time he was done, the Snowed Inn was sparkling clean and he was utterly exhausted.  

That evening, Papyrus had dinner with the bunny woman and her family.  She’d insisted that he join them as a thank you for all his hard work, and, since he knew Sans wasn’t likely to be back for another hour, he’d gratefully accepted.  That hour came and went, followed up by two more just like it, with no sign of the other skeleton.  Papyrus was just starting to get worried when Sans finally made an appearance.  His small figure was easy to spot, white bone and blue cloth standing out in the lamplight, trudging towards the inn with blank, lifeless eye sockets.  He’d had another hard evening, that much was clear, but Papyrus wasn’t about to let it stay like that.  He hopped off the porch and jogged down the street to meet him.  

“Welcome home brother,” he cheered as he swept the older boy into a hug, his momentum spinning them both around and leaving sliding tracks in the trampled snow.  

Sans laughed at his antics, his brother’s joy chasing away whatever dark thoughts had been trapping him.  His eye lights sparked to life, warm as candlelight.  “hey paps.  you have a good day?”

“Ooh Sans, you’ll never believe it!  I saw the most amazing thing!”

Papyrus walked the pair of them back to the inn, eagerly chatting about his encounter with Undyne.  He regaled his brother with the details of the rescue as they both settled in for the night, stopping only to make sure that Sans ate the leftover dinner that the innkeeper had saved for him, and inquired about the other’s day as well.  Sans snickered under his breath as he told the younger skeleton about some of his more colorful customers.  He didn’t say what had kept him so late and Papyrus didn’t ask.  Neither of them wanted to risk ruining the other’s good mood, even if that meant one more secret added to the tangled mess between them.  

The older boy dug a small pile of coins from his pockets, depositing them in the striped sock that contained most of their savings.  Something darkly troubled flickered across his features, but he shoved it aside.  “hey, why don’t we go to waterfall tomorrow?  i can set up the stand just in case anybody comes by and we can look at the crystals.”

Even though he’d technically been there that day, Papyrus was eager to return.  And it wasn’t just in hopes of seeing Undyne again, though that thought was a tempting one.  There were certain quiet passageways in Waterfall, not too far off the main road, that were perfect for crystal watching.  He remembered going there as a child, lying back with his brother and trying to pick out patterns in the distant, twinkling reflections.  He’d made wishes there, dreams that he’d hoped with all his soul might come true, but most of those long ago dreams had faded away.  Perhaps it was time to wish for something new.

“I’d like that.”

Tomorrow, he would tell his brother the big news; Papyrus was going to join the royal guard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's update time! Because somebody out there said they were still excited, and so am I~! Sorry it took me so long though. Why did this take me so long to write? It felt soooo much longer when I was working on it. Ooh well, at least the recaps are all done now and the actual plot is starting to show up. So here we go! 
> 
>  
> 
> (countless resets later … )

When the barrier was broken, all of monster kind felt it fall.  

Their stolen souls raced back to their bodies, carrying with them the giddy thrill that something big and important was happening and they’d managed to be a small part of it.  A great and terrible force had been torn down at long last, felled by something beyond monster, beyond human, beyond magic itself.  The ripples of that energy traveled far, echoing through the underground like the ringing of a bell, its resonance singing in every magical being.  They felt something shift in the universe, a sudden lightness as a weight they had never truly realized had been placed upon their souls was finally lifted.  

The monsters thrilled at the discovery, passing the news to one another with breathless excitement.  The seal that had contained all the power and potential of the underground was open.  They were free.

—-

In the infinite space between magic and matter, someone else felt the ripples of that great and terrible power … and he followed them.

—-

Cool wind blew over the mountains, carrying the scents of grass, dirt, and distant water to a small group of monsters who stood blinking in astonishment at the world around them.  Two of them had seen this world before, so many lifetimes ago, and their eyes were wet with unshed tears.  For the others, this world and all its infinite possibility was completely new.  The barrier was gone.  Their generations long imprisonment was at an end.  

It was over.  

Sans could hardly believe it.  In all honesty, part of him still didn’t.  For so long now, he’d been trapped in never ending loops as time skipped backwards again and again, first because of that damn flower and then at the hands of the kid and whatever hid behind their smile.  The pair of them had held the underground hostage, using people like playthings.  Monsters were disposable to them.  It didn’t matter what they did, they could just rewind the world and everything would be undone with no one the wiser.  No one except Sans.  

He’d made a mistake with the flower, letting that leafy little bastard know that he was on to the game.  Things got so much worse after that.  In his naive hope that discovering how this game wasn’t as consequence free as he’d thought might make Flowey stop, Sans had placed a target on his own back.  Apparently the only thing more entertaining to that rotten weed than playing with the lives of monsters was matching wits with someone who actually knew what he was up to.  At least, until Sans had made it clear that he wasn’t going to let Flowey get away with it anymore.  He’d been stupid to think he ever stood a chance against someone who could just rewrite time.  All Flowey had to do was keep trying until he’d caught Sans unaware, found the holes in his defenses, discovered what mattered most to him and ripped it away.  Sans didn’t know how many times he’d died by now, and honestly he didn’t care, but he knew exactly how many times Papyrus had died.  There was a page in the back of his journal covered with shaky hash marks, the ink blurring together into a dark, nearly indecipherable mess.  He didn’t need to count them to know how many there were.  

When the kid showed up and it became clear that their reality now spun according to the small human’s whims, Sans swore to himself that he’d do better.  The direct approach was never going to work, not against someone who had as many do overs as they wanted.  This situation called for subtlety.  That was especially true since the woman behind the door, one of the few people he could truly call his friend despite the fact that he didn’t even know her name, had asked him to try and protect the human.  If only she knew what kind of power resided in that small, red soul.  

So Sans hid his fears behind a harmless smile, watching out for the kid if only for his friend’s request, playing with them and cheering them on if only for his brother’s happiness.  Vague impressions, half remembered dreams, and meticulous notes let him know he’d done all this before, but sometimes he didn’t even need them  He could just see it on the kid’s face, frustration and determination driving them on in the face of adversity.  It was actually kind of nice to see them succeed and finally conquer whatever puzzle or problem that had them stumped.  It made the kid happy, which made Undyne and Papyrus happy, which in turn made Sans happy.  And that was enough … until it wasn’t.  Until the human wore a mask of their own, their smile just as pointless as his.  Until there was dust on their hands, on the streets, on a tattered red scarf lying abandoned in the snow.  

Sans never stopped his brother from facing that dust covered human.  That’s not to say he never tried, he did plenty of that, but in the end it was his brother’s choice to go.  Nothing could stop Papyrus from believing the best in people, even those who’d done such terrible things.  He would gladly risk death just to take a chance and offer redemption … and once, it really worked.  Once, when the human’s dusty fists trembled and their expression was tight with fear, they took that offered hand and put down the knife.  

When time next reset itself, they met Papyrus with an empty smile and crushed his skull into dust.  

Deep down, some part of Sans wanted to uphold his brother’s ideals and believe that even the worst person can change.  That everyone can be a good person, if they just try.  But the rest of his weary soul wanted revenge.  So once he knew without a doubt that the human was unwilling to spare a single monster, he waited in the golden hall just outside the king’s flower strewn throne room, knowing that the human would have to pass through if they wanted to get to the barrier and the only monster left whose soul would allow them to pass through it.  He stalked the tile floors, sorrow and rage whipping his magic into a furious storm which his soul could barely contain, waiting to turn this last checkpoint into a place of judgment.  He would make this thing that dared call itself a human pay for their crimes, or die trying.

The hallway became a loop of its own, time resetting itself over and over.  He had no time to write down what he remembered of the previous timeline, the human always arrived too quickly for that, but it didn’t matter.  He remembered the thrill of battle, the hot surge of magic through his fingertips, the rush of air as a knife carved through the space where he’d stood fractions of a second before.  He remembered the grinning face of his enemy slowly morphing into a dark, deadly scowl.  And for what felt like months, that was all he knew.  Then, as the tell tale feeling of wrongness that accompanied a reset faded from his bones, Sans knew something was different.  He took a breath, gasping as if he’d been drowning moments before, and felt the phantom pain of a knife between his ribs.  He startled as if waking from a dream and knew, deep down in his soul, that he’d died.  

Again.  

And again.  

And again.  

The kid was toying with him, making him pay for besting them so many times.  A small, guilty whisper in his mind thought that he deserved it.  After all, how many times had he killed them?  He didn’t even know anymore.  But more than that, he longed for it all to end.  The human knew his weakness now, there was no way that he could stop them.  They had what they wanted, so why couldn’t they just let him be?  Why couldn’t they leave him as a pile of red stained dust on the gleaming tile floor?  Was there anything waiting for him if time managed to slip free of its new master’s control and march forward once more?  Would he go to the same place Papyrus had?  He wasn’t sure.  It didn’t seem right, someone like him ending up in the same place as someone as good as his brother, but he hoped so just the same.  

Sans was far from new to hopelessness.  He wore its heavy burden like a cloak, draping it over his worn, brittle bones and holding it close as if apathy might offer some consolation.  It didn’t matter how many times the human carved him up and left him to die, thick drops of deep red mixing with his dust as he slowly fell apart.  It didn’t matter if he managed to teleport away before the last pieces of his broken bones dissolved.  It didn’t matter if the human went on and faced down whatever Asgore had waiting for them or if they stayed behind, watching him die with that maddening smile, all too eager to see it happen again.  Nothing he could do or say mattered now.  Maybe it never had.

Their battle was like an intricate dance, and each of them knew their part well.  Sans made his magic burn and flash, arcing through the air the way he knew the human wanted him to.  Just launch the attack, summon the blasters, throw them across the room by their soul and dodge as they bounded their way back.  Just do what they want and maybe it’ll be over quicker.  Maybe they won’t want to linger any longer, making him play out his own end over and over until life and death felt the same.

Sans played his part obediently until the rhythm of their battle suddenly faltered in a way he’d never experienced before.  His enemy paused, the weapon shaking in their hands, and when Sans looked up he saw someone he’d thought he would never see again.  The kid, not the killer.  The little human who’d laughed with him so long ago, not the thing that wore their face like a grinning, dust smeared mask.  They dropped the knife, stumbling forward, and fell into his open arms.  Sans remembered shaking as he held them, unsure if he was doing the right thing, but then they’d looked up at him, face streaked with dust and blood, brown eyes hazed with gleaming red .. and nodded.  They had smiled when the bone cage pierced them, shattering their own fragile ribs, and for the first time in what felt like forever, that smile wasn’t the frightening, hollow thing Sans had learned to fear.  They’d felt the sting of that attack before, yet they walked into it willingly.  They’d known that he would kill them, breaking one of the ultimate unsaid rule of monster kind with false mercy, and they’d let him do it.  The nightmare only ended because the kid had let it end.

‘but they did let it end,’ he reminded himself as he stood on the rocky cliffside, his hands clenched into tight fists that trembled in his pockets.    

They let it end.  They’d let him kill them and then … that’s when it all changed.   He didn’t know what truly happened when his attack skewered that tainted soul one last time, but it had felt different than before.  He remembered that much without even having to write it down.  Something changed in that moment, and the next time he woke it was in his own bed, safe at home in Snowdin as if none of that unending nightmare had ever happened.  He’d stood in the doorway of his brother’s room for hours after that, watching over him like a silent statue, just trying to get himself to believe that this was real and not some hallucination brought on by a mental breakdown.  

And now, one achingly long timeline full of cautious glances and unexpected mercy later, they were on the surface.  'again,’ Sans thought, momentary bitterness invading his thoughts.  They’d been here once before, if only for a few moments, before the world reset itself.  His journal held the proof, documented in angry scrawls that he’d written upon waking back in the underground, the briefest glimpses of something vast and beautiful already fading from his memory.  The kid had given them freedom and then ripped it away.  He didn’t know if that was better or worse than the genocide that had followed.  

But things were different now.  Whatever madness had gripped the human child had come and gone.  They’d done everything, seen everything, met everyone in the underground and killed them all only to bring them back and meet them again.  'are you satisfied now?’ he thought, casting a covert glance at the kid, but it wasn’t satisfaction that he saw lurking behind their hesitant grin.  It was guilt.  A small coil of resentment finally unwound itself from Sans’s soul, and he could breathe again.  

As if they could feel the weight of his stare, Frisk glanced up at Sans.  Unreadable emotions twisted their features, pulling their mouth into a worried frown.  They looked away, nibbling on their lip as if in deep concentration.  If they were concerned about Sans letting their little secret slip … well they didn’t need to be.  He had no intentions of telling the others just yet, not that he was entirely sure they’d believe him if he tried.  He’d given the kid enough of a bad time already, and if they were still willing to give him this … well, he wasn’t quite sure if he could trust them yet, but he could at least keep their secret.  

“We call that 'the sun’,” he told Papyrus as he gazed up at the not so distant star he’d only ever read about in books.  It hurt to look directly at it but he did so anyway.  This was what real light was supposed to be like.  This was the warmth his parents had known when they were small and had longed for all the rest of their too short lives.  It burned a brilliant white, painting stripes of vibrant yellow and orange across a sky filled with fluffy clouds and casting deep purple shadows as it slowly sank towards the horizon.  A brief stab of panic struck him and he desperately wanted it to stop, to stay, to keep shining down on them and never, ever go.  But it would be back.  He knew that it would.  It wasn’t really going anywhere, the earth was.  They were spinning around that star, hurtling through space, and when their little corner of the planet turned away they would see the light of other stars, the far away balls of burning brilliance that he’d dreamed of for so long.  He would see them shine, watch the moon crawl its way slowly across the sky, and when it too set, the sun would return and he would see it rise, climbing high above to wake the world with its warm, brilliant light.  

Night was falling, like the books said.  'Falling’ seemed like such an awful word for something so peaceful and beautiful.  It would come and go and come again, an eternal cycle of light and dark so unlike the perpetual shadow of the underground.  That darkness had never bothered Sans, even knowing on a purely intellectual level what he was missing, but now he knew that if this were taken from him he would always long for it like his parents had.  He cast another nervous glance towards the human child who had done all this.  Frisk had brought monsters into the light, but they could all too easily take that light away from them.  

The others were talking, excited and amazed by the world around him, but Sans tuned it out for the most part, his attention firmly focused on the kid.  Frisk was looking up at Toriel, taking in her soft, gentle smile and the way she brushed stray tears from her face.  Sympathetic sorrow shone in the small human’s eyes.  They reached up and held on to the end of Toriel’s sleeve, clutching it like a lost child desperate for someone to show them the way.  Something stirred in Sans, a guilty little emotion that he didn’t want to face just yet.  

“I’ll go make a good first impression!” Papyrus shouted, his excited smile just as bright as the sun setting before them.  And there he went, off to no doubt greet the first human he saw with a hearty laugh and a big hug.  Provided that human didn’t try to kill him.  

'welp,’ Sans said with a soft, false chuckle, 'someone’s gotta keep him from getting into trouble.  see you guys.’  With a faint shrug and and easy smile, he turned on his heel and headed back in the other direction.  

Though a part of him never wanted to be in the oppressive dark of the underground again, he couldn’t deny how comforting the familiarity of it was.  His soft footsteps barely made a sound even in the cramped, echoing cavern where the barrier had once stood.  He just needed a moment to himself, away from the excited clamor of his friends and the overwhelming vastness of the outside world.  He trusted Undyne to keep Papyrus out of trouble for him, at least for the most part, though he didn’t actually plan on being apart from his brother long enough for something to happen.  Unless Frisk reset, that is, in which case it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Letting his eternal smile drop as much as was possible, Sans leaned back against the cavern wall.  “it’s over,” he whispered into the quiet darkness, “they’re not gonna reset.  they let it end.  they want this just as much as we do.  it’s over this time.”  He held those words in his soul, clinging to them to keep him afloat.  He had to believe that this time, finally, the world would move forward.

A low, wet hiss echoed in the cavern.  Magic flared up in the small skeleton’s eye and he quickly pushed himself away from the cavern wall, searching for the source of the sudden sound.  He held his breath, the light of his own magic illuminating the space.  Something shimmered on the stone floor.  Scattered drops of some sort of dark liquid reflected his blue glow, shining like the gems which hung over Waterfall.  As he watched, curiosity melting into dread, they slowly began to move.  

The dark blobs crawled their way across the cavern floor, picking up speed as they fled from the sharp, blue glow of magic.  Hints of movement from elsewhere caught his attention as more fat droplets of inky blackness rolled along.  They were all around him, practically filling the small cave like a swarm of crawling insects, all converging in a single, shadowed corner.  Holding his breath, Sans slowly approached.  His magic swirled around his hands and lit up his eyes, shining out of him to banish the darkness.  As he drew closer, something reflected that pale blue glow.  Lurking in the dark, bent low as if hunched, was a large, dripping form of inky blackness.  Its surface glistened as it shuddered, sliding and rolling like thick, black tar, a burbling hiss emanating from somewhere deep inside it.  The little blobs that rolled and skittered across the floor joined with it, merging seamlessly into the shape which grew ever taller until the scattered ooze had formed into a single entity.  Slowly, it turned towards him, the suggestion of eyes staring intent and unblinking.  Something bubbled and shifted in the dark mass, like a mouth slowly stretching into a too wide smile.  

Sans jumped back, his body vanishing from view and reappearing a few feet behind where he’d stood moments ago.  The air above him shimmered momentarily as a large, beastly skull manifested, already growling ferociously as magical light gathered in its gaping jaws.  A beam of raw power split the darkness, scorching the stone of the cavern wall.  It took mere moments for the construct to fire its deadly blast, far faster than most denizens of the underground could hope to react.  The dark shape, however, had no trouble flattening itself to the ground and ducking underneath the scorching beam.  It slipped away, staring at the small skeleton for a moment longer with its not-quite-eyes, and raced into the endless shadows of the underground.  

Sans gasped for breath, sweat beading on his skull.  He could taste raw magic in his own mouth.  What had he almost done?  He’d let his frazzled emotions get the better of him and acted without thinking, as if he were still locked in endless combat with the smiling stranger that had controlled Frisk for so long.  His magic churned inside him.  He could have killed whatever that thing was.  What if it was just some innocent monster?  Maybe it was a moldsmal that had fallen into a tub of ink of something.

It wasn’t.  He couldn’t explain how he knew, much in the same way he couldn’t explain how he knew to summon and command the floating skull which sparked and sputtered fiercely above him.  He simply knew that if he were to tap into that part of his magic which felt ever so slightly strange and give it power and purpose, his father’s creations would appear ready to defend him.  And he simply knew that the dark, featureless thing that had stared at him so intently was seriously bad news.  

The blaster let out a low rumble, something halfway between a purr and a growl, and drifted lower until it could nudge its bony snout against his shoulder.  Sans reached up and scratched near where its ears would have been had it possessed any.  “thanks buddy,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “you scared it away.”  

The construct rumbled again, pleased with itself, and the last traces of blue light in its eye sockets gave way to a soft, white glow.  Sans pet the beast a few moments more before dismissing it and watching as its form scattered in a shower of pale, glimmering specks, its consciousness returning to whatever realm it had originally come from.  The mixed magic that connected him to the blasters was already beginning to cool, but he could still feel the way it made his soul beat faster in his chest.  Or maybe that was just the fear that refused to leave him.  Dread crept up on the small skeleton as he suddenly realized how long he’d been down here in the dark while his brother and friends went looking for humans.  It wasn’t like he’d be all that much help if the humans did decide to attack, but that still wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.  Whatever the strange, dark shape meant, he would have to deal with it later.  

Sans willed the flow of time around him to stutter and reality lost its hold on him.  He stepped into the space between magic and matter, between thought and action, between awake and asleep.  The small skeleton closed his eyes tight against the endless emptiness that clawed at his body and soul, not wanting to see it looking back at him, and walked forward.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After what was probably waaaay too long just focusing on my other fics … it’s the return of Ash and Bone! For anyone who just reads this one and not the other and wonders why it took this long … well, this is what happens when you fix a pacing issue and wind up pre-writing large portions of what ends up being like 4 to 5 different chapters. Oops. BUT with all those done I finally was able to focus on this story again, and wow I’d missed it. 
> 
> I really hope someone out there is still interested in this one. I know I am.

A dark shape slithered through empty, echoing halls.  It slid along the worn stone floor like oil, the contours of its form shifting and changing as it moved.  It wasn’t used to being a solid thing anymore.  The laws of nature were so limiting.  

It slunk past open doors and flower strewn chambers, searching for something few others would ever see.  There.  A spot of shimmering energy that seemed to skip and vanish if looked at directly.  A weak point in the fabric of reality.  The thing grinned to itself as it darted forwards and vanished from the lonely halls.  For a moment, there was only darkness, but it wasn’t bothered by the endless black that clawed and called as it sped onwards.  Once it had been unable to refuse that call, but not anymore.  It found another spot of light, hazy in the endless night of this other reality, and passed through it only to emerge in a watery cavern.  Crystals gleamed overhead.  Tall, blue flowers bloomed nearby.  The thing let out a watery gurgle of giddy excitement.  It was free!  Finally it was really free.  And it …

… no, not ‘it’ …

… 'he’.  

A different sort of awareness flickered to life in his formerly scattered mind.  He was a man.  Or, he had been once.  Then, he’d become something else.  Consciousness without form.  Essence without substance.  He had been everywhere and nowhere.  Everything and nothing.  Silly things like time and space didn’t matter to him anymore.  He’d become unbound from the rules of reality, but that ultimate freedom brought with it the ultimate price.  He’d been condemned to see, hear, and know everything that went on in the underground, but to always remain apart from it.  Out of sync.  Out of phase.  Separate.  Lost.  Forgotten.  The world he’d left behind had gone on as if he’d never existed at all.  

He’d had a name once, before all traces of his existence had been wiped away from reality and memory.  What was it?  Who had he been?  The twisting trail of his thoughts led him through ghosts of his own memory.  Scattered words.  Fleeting glimpses.  There had been someone who’d remembered him … hadn’t there?  One person who, even if they didn’t recall everything, at least had known he’d existed.  Someone who felt the hole his absence left in reality.  He recalled the face that had stared at him in numb horror as he fought his way back into reality, the lost pieces of his being coming together bit by bit and bringing his fragmented awareness with them.  There was something familiar there.   They were different, older, perhaps, than the last time he’d truly seen them, but the eyes … those had not changed at all.  

He gazed down at the shifting, liquid mass of his body.  No, this wasn’t right.  He couldn’t quite recall what he’d looked like before, but he knew this wasn’t it.  He had been tall once, hadn’t he?  He at least remembered this place and knew he should be seeing it from much higher up.  His shifting, inky darkness stretched itself to accommodate this newly desired perspective.  Yes, this felt right.  Encouraged by the progress, he attempted something else.  Legs felt right as well, he was almost certain he’d had two of them.  Arms?  Yes, definitely.  Four of them?  No, no, that wasn’t right, just two.  But, hands.  Yes, he’d had hands.  Liquid shadow dripped away, revealing pale white blobs that slowly morphed and shifted as a clear picture began to take shape in his mind.  Digits separated, bent, and stretched.  Holes opened up in his palms.  Slowly he reached up to touch his face, feeling smooth curves marred by arching cracks that opened up from hollow, drooping eye sockets.  He’d been a man once.  

From somewhere in the distance, he heard the faint echoes of someone talking.  Fear put an abrupt end to his reflections, and he dashed into the shadows.  There were two of them, young by the sound of it, talking excitedly to one another at the far end of the cave this chamber was connected to.  What would happen if they saw him?  Would they scream?  Would they attack him like the familiar one had?  He needed to defend himself.  

He sought out that spark of magic that comes so naturally to all monsters, the instinct to tap into his own power still strong despite his lingering confusion, but found nothing.  Where a soul once beat, there was only an empty hollowness in the center of his being.  That should have been surprising to him, but it wasn’t.  He felt as if he’d lost that long ago.  Still, there should have been something.  An energy that was alive but not in the way souls were.  A pitch and harmony that resonated in him.  Where was it?  

The man who was not quite a man called to the magic that would defend him.  He had no soul to sing with, no natural magic to harmonize, but he had something else.  He’d only just found his way back to this reality, and he was determined to stay there.  

—-

Papyrus could hardly believe what he was seeing.  The surface world was full of wonders.  He used to imagine what it might be like above the mountain, how vast the world up there might be, but even his wildest dreams hadn’t prepared him for the sheer size of it.  It seemed to go on forever, an endless sprawl of trees and rock and even other mountains.  Other mountains!  Papyrus wondered if there were cities beneath them too.  

He’d never been somewhere without a ceiling before.  The sky was so high up, how did surface dwellers not feel like they were about to float away?  Ooh but it was beautiful.  The sky, the clouds, and especially the sun.  It didn’t look at all like it did in his old storybooks, but that was okay.  He liked this real one even better!  It was so big and warm, and it made such lovely colors glow and fade across the sky.  He could have watched it for hours, if only there weren’t so many other amazing things to see.  

Papyrus made his way through a forest that he thought might be even bigger than the one surrounding Snowdin.  It was strange to see trees without snow.  They looked so … green.  And tall.  And … those weren’t needles on them at all!  Were they even really trees?  He’d been so busy trying to figure out if it was the needles or the bark that made a tree a tree that he nearly missed the sounds of people nearby.  No, not just people.  Humans!  An odd mixture of excitement and fear raced through him.  Papyrus wasn’t sure what to do.  He’d come looking for them, but now that they were close he couldn’t help but remember all those stories he’d been told about how dangerous and powerful humans were.  'They aren’t all like that,’ he reminded himself with a confidence he wasn’t quite sure if he felt or not, 'Frisk isn’t like that.’  But Papyrus still approached with caution and hid behind a thick cluster of trees.  Just to be safe.  

The humans were bigger than he’d imagined them to be.  At least one of them was even taller than himself.  Somehow he’d thought they would be small, like Frisk, even though he knew now that Frisk was only a child.  They were gathered in a circle around a roaring fire.  It seemed an awfully dangerous place to be, since Papyrus sincerely doubted that blaze was being generated by safe, clean fire magic due to the amount of dark smoke rising from it, but the humans clearly weren’t bothered.  They were talking and laughing with one another.  Some of them sang along with loud music which blared from the open door of a nearby car.  A real car!  He’d always dreamed of seeing one.  It was red and everything.  

“There you are!”  Papyrus let out an undignified little squeak of surprise as Undyne plowed through the underbrush behind him.  She chuckled as she slung an arm around his shoulders.  “Thought you’d run off and leave the rest of us behind, huh?”

He looked up sheepishly, only just realizing that in his enthusiasm he’d run off alone.  It wasn’t that he’d meant to leave them out, somehow he’d just assumed that the others would be right behind him.  “Ooh, I suppose I did do that … but, I was just so excited to meet our new human friends!”

“Well it looks like you found some.”  

Despite her apparent easy confidence, Undyne didn’t get any closer to the humans either.  They watched with guarded smiles, too excited to retreat but too anxious to approach.  Papyrus couldn’t make out what the humans were saying, they were much too far away, but their loud laughter was unmistakable.  They were having such a good time with one another.  Surely they had to be good friends, and such friendly people would be happy to be friends with them as well.  R-right?

“Ooh goodness, I’m so nervous,” Toriel said as she and Frisk made their way closer.  The towering boss monster had to crouch too avoid low lying tree limbs.  Somewhere behind her, Alphys was trying to help Asgore get his horns untangled from a stray branch with minimal success.  

Both Papyrus and Undyne jumped a bit at their sudden arrival, though they tried to hide it behind wide, beaming grins.  “You’re not the only one,” the warrior said with a chuckle as she patted Papyrus on the back so hard that he nearly toppled over.  “This guy was back here shakin’ in his boots.”

“I-I was not.  THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS NEVER INTIMIDATED WHEN IT COMES TO NEW FRIENDS!  I … simply … was waiting for you!”  It was a weak protest, he knew that, but Undyne’s teasing words had no actual bite behind them anyway.  They were all nervous, and they all knew it.  His gaze darted towards the humans again, but it looked like they hadn’t heard his unintentional shouting.  “It would be wrong of me to exclude you all from such an important moment.”

Toriel gave him a patient, knowing sort of smile.  “That’s very considerate of you Papyrus.  But, perhaps we should take this slow, don’t you think?”

“Y-yes!” he managed, his relief a bit more obvious than he would have liked.  “Yes that sounds like a very good idea.  Meeting such awesome individuals as ourselves could be a bit overwhelming, and we wouldn’t want that.”

“sure wouldn’t,” Sans said, perfectly calm despite the fact that he hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Papyrus wasn’t all that surprised by his brother’s sudden appearance.  He was used to Sans showing up when he liked, where he liked, without much concern for the normal, natural order of things.  It was just part of what made the other skeleton who he was, like his deliberately awful puns and his infuriating habit of leaving his socks lying around.  However, if the reactions of his companions was any indication, it seemed that he and Frisk were the only ones used to these unexpected appearances.

“What the,” Undyne yelped as she jumped away, staring down in disbelief at the short skeleton that now stood beside her.  “Where did you come from?!”

Sans didn’t answer her question.  Papyrus didn’t either.  His brother’s odd habits weren’t nearly as interesting as the humans laughing and singing nearby.  “Ooh there you are brother!  You almost missed the big introduction.   Though I suppose now we are looking at more of a small introduction instead.”

“well that does sound more my style.”

Papyrus waited for the pun that should have followed a setup like that, but it never came.  Now that was odd.  He’d practically handed his sibling the perfect prompt and everything.  “Brother, are you feeling alright?”

“huh?”  Sans blinked up at him as if waking from a dream.  “ooh, ya, never better.”

Papyrus knew a lie when he heard one.  Though, to be fair, that one was particularly obvious.  He also knew that he should have been irritated by his brother’s unflinching willingness to lie to his face, but really he wasn’t.  Sans used those little white lies to protect him, though Papyrus did not truly want protection from whatever darkness his brother held, and he was guilty of doing much the same in return.  “You know … if you’re also feeling a bit … overwhelmed … that’s alright.”

For just a moment, the small skeleton’s eye lights flickered, betraying an unease that was otherwise hidden from view.  Then his fixed grin softened into an easy, effortless smile and the moment was gone.  “well maybe i’m a bit out of my _depth_ ,” he said with a soft chuckle, “but hey, we all are.”

Papyrus furrowed his eyebrow ridges and groaned at the obvious joke, but the theatrics were muted compared to his normal exuberance.  He couldn’t quite shake his own worries, both for the other skeleton and for the situation they had found themselves in.  They truly were out of their depth, cringe worthy word play aside.  Everything about this was new, uncharted territory.  If they made a mistake, would the humans not trust them?  Would they be sent back and re-sealed underground?  Papyrus couldn’t bear the thought of that, not now that he knew what he’d been missing.  How had the king and queen been able to stand it, living down there in the dark and all the while knowing how amazing the light truly was?  

Blue light danced at the edge of his vision.  Sans’s magic.  He’d know that shade anywhere, though the silent hum of it didn’t quite feel right.  Ooh of all the times for his brother to decide to stop being lazy and take charge for once.  “Really now Sans, this isn’t the time for … ” he trailed off when he realized that the light wasn’t just coming from his brother.  A fierce glow that matched the bright blue in the small skeleton’s eye was shining from somewhere above him, accompanied by a chorus of familiar, scraping hisses.  

A hand shot out and grasped his arm tight, dragging him away before he could even think of what to say, and Papyrus found his view blocked by Undyne’s flowing red hair.  “What are those things?!” she exclaimed as she summoned one of her spears, bluegreen magic shaping itself into a deadly weapon that flashed and sparked in her hands.  A haze of green hung in the air, ready to form into a near-unbreakable shield at a moment’s notice.  

“An attack.  Well, sort of.”  Papyrus edged around the wary warrior, putting himself between her and the summoned creatures that hovered and snarled just above his head.  Light danced in the sharp maws of three blaster skulls, their eye sockets blazing with fearsome power.  Even after all this time, they could still make him nervous when they growled like that, so it came as no surprise to him that the others were more than startled by them.  Toriel stared down the clicking, hissing beasts, her raised hands wreathed in flame, a steely, determined look nearly masking her fear.  She’d pulled Frisk away, much like Undyne had for him, and the small human was practically cowering behind her.  They pressed their face against her long robe, as if that alone could hide them from the blaster’s sight.  Nearby, Alphys had ducked behind Asgore, the pair of them watching with matched expressions of captivated horror.  No matter how unprecedented the situation, this was just unacceptable.  Papyrus squared his shoulders and looked up at the floating constructs with a stern stare.  “Go back where you came from.  There’s nothing for you to fight here and you’re scaring our friends.  Go on.  Shoo.”

He waved a hand dismissively, a hazy wisp of his own deep blue magic trailing after the gesture, hoping that his commands would be enough to send the creatures on their way even though he had not been the one to summon them.  It wasn’t.  They still clicked and hissed, snapping at nothing as their glowing eyes darted from place to place.  One of them let out an almost plaintive whine, pale sparks shimmering behind its teeth.  

For what felt like the hundredth time, Papyrus wished he was better at controlling these creatures.  Ooh the blasters listened to him if he called them in battle, but making them come to him and defend him from dangerous opponents was one thing.  Drawing their attention and loyalty away from his brother?  Now that was nearly impossible.  Their shared attack always deferred to Sans.  They drew most of their strength from the older skeleton’s magic and always responded to him with hardly any effort on his part.  Most of the time, things like that didn’t matter much because Sans didn’t like to fight, wouldn’t have been able to do so safely with most other monsters even if he’d wanted to, and would actively avoid any sort of situation that might lead to a battle.  But when he was like this …

Papyrus turned his attention away from the distressed magical beasts.  Sans had his head down, hands clenched into trembling fists at his sides.  Blue magic flashed around those small hands, leaping and dancing like flame.  It burned in his good eye, flickering with flashes of yellow, while the other remained wide, dark, and sightless.  This wasn’t right, not a single part of it.  

Green energy pressed on them as Undyne inched closer.  “Sans, this isn’t funny.  Get rid of these things or I swear I’ll dust them myself.”

“NO!” Papyrus yelled as a sudden fear gripped his soul.  It wasn’t unheard of for monsters to forcibly banish one another’s attacks even outside of a battle or training scenario, but it wasn’t exactly common either.  If you weren’t careful, destroying a magical construct could hurt the summoner.  Even with Undyne’s pinpoint precision, there was still some inherent risk involved.  And putting aside the potential risk to Sans, something which Papyrus found very hard to look past, what would it do to the blasters?  Construct or not, these were thinking creatures.  They had awareness.  The blasters were alive in their own way.  Would one of Undyne’s spears dissipate them, sending them back to the place all magical constructs go when their summoners dismiss them, or would an attack like that kill them?  “You can’t.  This isn’t their fault, they’re only trying to protect us.”  

“From what?!” the warrior yelled as she flung out a hand, her spear cutting a flashing arc through the air.  “There’s nothing here!”

Leaves rustled and grass crunched as Asgore pushed a heavy branch aside in a attempt to get close enough to intervene.  “Everyone please calm down.  I’m sure we can sort all this out.”  

For a long moment, there was only tense silence.  That was when Papyrus realized that it shouldn’t have been silent at all.  The distant sounds of talking had gone quiet.  Even the blaring music was gone now.  He thought he could hear worried murmurs from beyond the trees, but he wasn’t sure.  One thing was clear though; the humans were aware of them now.  Would they come investigate?  And if they did, would the blasters see them as a threat and fire?  Papyrus stood in front of the hissing creatures hovering protectively over Sans, placing himself between them and the distant clearing where the humans had been.  “Please brother, you have to stop this.”

“i can’t,” came the reply, oddly raspy and faint.

“I promise nothing bad is going to happen to us.  Just please, send them away.”

“papyrus, i … “  The smaller skeleton’s skull turned towards him, tilted back and listing to the side like a poorly strung puppet.  One eyelight flickered madly, blown into a wide ring the center of which was dark and hollow.  His teeth were grit in a pained, too sharp smile that held no hint of his usual relaxed cheer.  Though Sans was looking right at him, it was clear that he didn’t truly see him.  He wasn’t really there.  “i **c a n ’ t**.”

It had been so long since Papyrus had seen that look on his brother’s face.  He knew the nightmares weren’t gone.  Sometimes he still heard Sans cry out in the night, the sound often accompanied by panicked hissing or low growls.   On those nights, he wanted nothing more than to burst into his sibling’s room and do whatever it took to wake him.  Unfortunately that would have involved kicking down his door, and that was a line he simply could not cross.  Sans had made the choice to lock his door, to keep Papyrus out on those long nights and stubbornly pretend like everything was fine the next morning no matter how worn and weary he looked as he practically dragged himself down the stairs.  And Papyrus went along with it.  He played the part as well as he could, hiding the truth of his concern beneath exaggerated gestures and equally stubborn nagging.  It was all he could think of to do in order to show his brother that he did care, that he was and would always be there, without forcing Sans to admit to something he wasn’t ready to face.  Now, it was as if his nightmares had chased after him, breaking into the real world, and Papyrus had to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake.  

“I don’t think he’s the one doing this,” he muttered in his stunned stupor.  

“But it’s his magic!” Undyne exclaimed.  He didn’t have to see the look on her face to know she didn’t believe him.

“Y-yes, but … Sans wouldn’t do this.”  Papyrus bent down and wrapped his arms around the smaller skeleton, shielding him from the others much the same way he’d shielded the rest of the world from the terrible power of the blasters.  Sans rattled and shook against him.  “He doesn’t want to do this.”

As if sensing a change in the energy that had called them forth, the blasters began rattling as well.  They let out whines and clicks, spitting sparks as they warred with whatever mixed signals were keeping them there.  

“Then who _is_ doing it?” Asgore asked, patient and mild where anyone else, Papyrus included, would be desperate for answers.  

“I … I’m not sure.”  Even though he’d been the one to say it, Papyrus didn’t know how such a thing could happen.  An outside force controlling another monster’s magic, he’d never even heard of such a power.  Only ghosts could take control of another body, and only if they had decided to become corporeal.  Could such a thing even work if there was another soul in that body to begin with?  Even if it could, that clearly wasn’t the case with Sans.  They would have noticed a ghost amongst them.  At the very least, they would be able to sense the presence of another magical signature.  But there was no magic signature in Sans other than his own.  The song of that magic was oddly discordant, off in a way Papyrus couldn’t quite place, but it was still him.  And yet, he wasn’t in complete control of his actions.  It shouldn’t have been possible, but it had to be true.  For Sans to be doing this on his own and acting this way willingly, that was just unthinkable.  

“Sans, you must tell us who’s behind all this.”  There had to be someone else pulling the strings, even if he didn’t understand how.  It couldn’t just be that his brother had snapped and lost his mind at the sight of the humans.  He didn’t want to believe something like that.  There had to be someone else.  “Brother, _please_.”

“gaster,” Sans said at last, forcing the whispered word out through clenched teeth.  

Papyrus knew that name.  It conjured up lost images of a blurred face slowly coming into focus.  A voice he’d forgotten somehow rang clear once more.  Suddenly, a puzzle piece that he’d been missing for years had slid into place.  Gaster.  A name that carried with it so much happiness, sorrow, and dread.  And one he’d heard before, he was sure of that, only it had never seemed to matter then.  It was just a name, something meaningless and easily forgotten, or it had been then.  Now it was more than that.  It was a person.  But who?  The father he’d lost … or the stranger he’d run from?  The two ideas clashed and merged in his mind, painting a picture too unbelievable to be true.  

The flickering light of his brother’s eye flashed bright for an instant and then went dark, flaring out like a breaking bulb.  Sans gasped, his chest heaving.  His legs gave out on him, and Papyrus was quick to ease him down until they were both kneeling together on the ground.  The hypnotic commands that had been controlling them now gone, the blasters whined their high pitched distress call.  One by one, they drifted down to settle on the ground around them, pressing their muzzles against the brothers like frightened puppies looking for comfort.  Sans slowly placed a shaking hand on the nearest construct, resting his palm against the top of its skull in a gesture just as comforting to him as it was to the blaster.  

“Is he alright?” Toriel asked worriedly as she approached, hints of healing magic already sparkling at her fingertips.

The blasters whipped around at the sound of her voice, hissing in her direction as they hurried to defend their masters.  Only Sans’s restraining hand and Papyrus’s quick actions stopped them from rushing forward to snap at her.  He doubted that they would have truly sought to do her harm, they would have simply charged a powerful magic blast if they’d wanted to do something like that, but he still didn’t want them threatening anyone.

“It’s alright,” the younger skeleton muttered as he scratched the side of the creature’s long jaws the way he knew they liked, “she’s a friend.  They’re all friends.”

“Okay, I don’t know about you guys, but I need some answers.”  Undyne pointed her spear towards the blasters, not even flinching as one of them snarled at her in response.  “What are those things anyway?  And who’s this Gaster person?”

“Um, Undyne?” Alphs stammered, reaching out as if to grasp the taller woman’s arm but pulling her hand back at the last moment.  “M-maybe we shouldn’t … “

Papyrus couldn’t help but tune out their voices as the two women spoke to one another, his attention drawn back to his brother.  Sans tried to pull away from him, shifting his shoulders in the way he knew would allow him to slip free of his taller sibling’s grasp.  Bright blue flickered in his eye socket once more, not the solid ring of blazing power that had been there before but the subtle, easily missed spark that said he was gathering his energy.  The air around him tingled with magic and the faintly clean sharpness of ozone.  Any moment now, he would be gone, teleported away to some distant, shadowy corner where he could hide from the prying eyes of the monsters around him.  

Papyrus held on tighter and let that powerful magic wash over him.  It sparked and skittered in his bones, wrapping its tingling charge around him.  He shut his eye sockets against the brightness of it and let that power whisk him away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Start a new year as you mean to go on; with lots of fic. And on that note, ooh man this chapter got away from me. It’s so long! But in my defense they had a lot to talk about. More action-y stuff next time, for now I hope you enjoy this.

Sans didn’t know why he warped himself and his unintentional entourage to the same small cavern he’d been in so recently.  He only knew that when he’d stepped into the endless darkness that underscored their reality, so desperate to escape the stares of the monsters he tentatively called his friends, the way here had been oddly clear to him.  The invisible path through the emptiness promised a way out, a hidden space far from prying eyes or questions even he didn’t know the answers to, and he’d taken it.  

Mercifully there was no sign of the inky specter he’d seen in this place before, nor any indication that other monsters had been there recently.  There was only the peaceful stillness of the underground and the distant, muffled calls of birds from somewhere up above.  A low rumbling sound broke through the quiet as one of the blasters let out a distressed growl.  Sans placed his hand on the sloped crest of its head.  It vibrated under his touch, still full of anxious energy.  “it’s okay buddy,” he muttered as he pet the creature, “everything’s okay.”

The blasters always responded to his emotions, and to a lesser extent his brother’s as well.  He remembered something similar from when they’d belonged to their father, but it had never quite been like this.  Now when he was afraid he could feel the artificial magic bonded to his soul stir of its own accord, pulling at him as if begging to be set free.  When he did give in and summon them, the blasters were quick to defend him with all the ferocity of a loyal guard dog.  As long as they felt that fear in his soul, they would not rest until any sign of danger had been erased, even when he had no present threat to point them at.  They were less the reflections of their summoner that they had once been and more their own independent creatures, some even showing personalities distinct from one another.  Maybe a proper scientist, like Gaster had been, could have figured out why, but Sans didn’t know and hadn’t tried to find out.  He simply knew that when that magic became tied to his soul, it had changed something in them.  And it had changed something in Sans too.  

One of the other blasters, he could tell it was Romi because of the chipped fang, whined at him and pressed its bony muzzle against his side.  He stroked its skull like it was a beloved pet, which wasn’t too far from the truth.  All the while he whispered calming reassurances, a meaningless stream of soothing words that helped to calm his own racing magic.  “’s alright now.  nothing down here but us.”

But that wasn’t entirely true.  He could all but feel his brother’s stare.  Papyrus watched him warily.  Though he tried to disguise that fact by petting the remaining blaster which had settled in his lap, he wasn’t fooling anyone.  

“sorry,” Sans said at last, “didn’t mean to drag you all the way out here.”

“Yes, I know.  You meant to leave all on your own.”

He couldn’t help but wince.  “it’s not … i mean, i was just … “

“Scared?” the younger skeleton asked.  His voice was oddly small.

Sans looked away, hanging his head as one of his blasters squirmed its way under his arm.  The subtle vibration of its gravely, growlish purr was a welcome distraction from his guilt.  “ya.”

“I was too,” Papyrus admitted.  For such a simple statement, it was a shock to hear.  The would be guardsman always tried so hard to remain positive about everything and portray an aura of fearless confidence.  For him to be this open about something so many would see as weakness, he must have been really worried.  Silence stretched between them for a few minutes, tense and uncomfortable in a way that silence between brothers should never be, until the younger of the two could take it no longer.  “That really wasn’t you, right?  You wouldn’t … ”

Sans wasn’t about to let him finish that thought.  “i had nothing to do with it,” he all but snapped despite the subtle stab of guilt that raising his voice, such as it was, brought with it.  He gestured to the constructs pressed close against him.  “you know how I feel about showing off these guys.”

“I do.  Though, I must admit, I never quite understood it before.”  There was some relief in the way Papyrus turned his attention to the blasters, his features losing some of the guarded stiffness they’d previously held.  The construct resting on his lap seemed to relax a little as well.  Sans didn’t know if the living attacks they shared could sense his brother’s emotions the way they did his own.  There certainly was a connection there even if it was very different than the one he shared with them.  Papyrus knew the feel of the constructs and could call on their artificial magic with ease.  And in return, they were quick to listen and respond to him.  True it took some effort from Sans as well to make that summon happen, but it was less like conjuring the creations himself and more allowing them to manifest the way they wanted to.  Whatever awareness the blasters had was as eager to protect his brother as he was.

Papyrus smiled as he gently scratched at the blaster’s chin, but it didn’t quite match the subtle sadness in his eyes.  “They were his, weren’t they?  Gaster’s.  Our … our father’s.”

Even hearing the man’s name made Sans shudder.  Whether it was sorrow for a family long since lost or lingering terror that caused the reaction, he couldn’t quite tell.  “yep.”

“Then why do we have them now?”  Papyrus pinned his brother with an intense stare, not angry or even accusatory but inescapable none the less.  He’d lived so much of his life in the dark when it came to the man that had once been there father, and now he demanded answers.  “I remember you telling me that they were special, I just thought that meant they were some kind of rare magic.”

“heh.  you could say that.”  Sans watched the blasters nestled up against him, unable to bring himself to look the younger skeleton in the eye socket.  “they’re artificial.  he,” his voice faltered for a moment, “gaster made them from magical energy produced by the core.  he was trying to make something that would react like living bone, but instead … well, he got these guys.”

Papyrus let out a small hum of concentration.  Clearly something about the explanation didn’t sit right with him.  “That doesn’t make sense though.  To make something living like them, with a mind but not a soul, that takes more than just magic.  It … “  He trailed off, his eye sockets widening as glimmers of light sparked in their depths.  “It takes Determination.”

Sans felt a chill race through his soul.  He’d heard that word countless times, but somehow it always sounded different when the speaker knew the truth.  “w-what do you mean bro?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean.”  

The small skeleton hunched his shoulders, wishing he could hide in his hood and somehow make all this go away.  “Pap, please, just let this go.”

Papyrus looked down at him with obvious sympathy.  His brother didn’t want to push him, not when it truly hurt the way this did, but something still drove him to press on.  He clenched his jaw and squared his shoulders.  “I’m afraid I can’t do that Sans.  I’m not sure why, but I know this is important.  It’s a form of magic.  Isn’t it?  But, not normal magic.”  He eased the blaster off of his lap, patting its head to quiet the construct’s disappointed hiss, and began to pace.  “Our father found it.  But, he didn’t make it.  It comes from something else.  It’s powerful.  And,” his steps faltered as a little shudder ran through him.  “And dangerous.”

Sans tried to smile as if this whole mess didn’t bother him, but it was hard to pretend.  “heh, wow.  you sure remember a lot about this stuff.”

“I don’t know how I could ever have forgotten.  It was so important to dad.  He worked so hard to … to … “  Papyrus spun on his heel, staring down at Sans with a look of stunned astonishment.  “To help you.”  Before Sans could so much as blink, his brother was on his knees in front of him.  The blasters cuddled up against him let out raspy sounds of surprise and flew away as the younger skeleton grabbed him by the shoulders, all but shaking him in his agitation.  “You were sick, so he gave you Determination!”

“y-ya,” the smaller skeleton muttered, wishing he could look away.

Papyrus had that look on his face like when he’d figured out a particularly challenging puzzle.  “Is that why you can control the blasters so well?”

“i, uh, i dunno.  maybe.”

“And why you can use your shortcuts?”

“ya … “

“And prank me across time and space?”

“papyrus, stop!”  Sans grasped his brother’s wrists.  He was tempted to shove the younger skeleton away and make a run for it.  He had just enough energy for another quick shortcut, hopefully to somewhere more private.  There had to be some place he could hide out until all this mess blew over.  He looked up into his brother’s eye sockets, the faint light within dimming as worry overtook his excitement.  “please just … give me a sec, okay?”

“Ooh.  Right.  I suppose that was a bit much to throw at you all at once.”  With only a small bit of reluctance, Papyrus released him.  He lowered himself to the cavern floor, leaning back against the wall beside Sans.  The blaster trio hovering nearby saw an opportunity to cuddle up to them again and eagerly took it.  Papyrus chuckled faintly at their antics.  “I was right though, wasn’t I?”

“pretty much,” Sans said quietly, leaning his head back against the uneven stone wall.  A thin, strong arm wormed its way behind him and guided him to lean against his brother’s side.  Sans gave in without a fight.  He was tired.  He was always tired.  

They sat together like that for a while, only the blasters’ gravely purrs breaking the silence between them.  At least this time it didn’t feel quite so awkward.  In a strange way, it was almost a relief to have so much of their past out in the open now.  Sans had spent so many years carrying the weight of those events alone.  Now that someone else was there to bear it with him, he didn’t quite know what to make of it.  

Eventually, Papyrus cleared his throat in that way he knew would always get someone’s attention.  “There’s something else I’d like to know.  If you’re up to it.”  Though he wasn’t looking forward to answering more awkward questions, Sans nodded.  It was worth it to see Papyrus smile at him like that.  “If our father was able to find something that helped you that much, why hasn’t anyone else heard of it?  There’s so many other monsters that something like that could heal.”

The older skeleton allowed himself a heavy sigh.  On the long list of topics he’d rather not discuss ever again, this one was pretty high up there.  “that stuff … determination … it’s not medicine, paps.  even if that’s what he meant it to be.”

“Then, what is it?”

“i told you, it’s powerful magic.  the kind humans use.”  Sans closed his eyes and for just a moment it was like he was back in their home in Hotland, the place he’d spent so much of his childhood, staring at the glowing shape of a human soul as it floated in a suspicious looking canister clutched tight in his father’s arms.  The magic from those souls had saved his life.  He knew he should be grateful, but in reality, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d stolen something from them.  “monsters can only handle a little bit of the stuff at a time or else … well, it’s not pretty.”

It was Papyrus’s turn to flinch, his imagination no doubt running wild at that grim prospect.  “A little bit does heal though.  Or at least, it did for you.  What else can it do?”

“i don’t really know.”  He let out a humorless laugh.  “i don’t even think dad knew.”

“But, he must have.  Why would he give you magic if he didn’t know what it could do?”

“it’s not like he had many options.”  Sans ran a hand over his skull, wishing he’d pulled his hood up earlier just so he could tug it down over his eyes without being too conspicuous.  “you’ve gotta understand, what was wrong with me … nothing else could fix it.”

His brother’s features softened into a sad smile, his gaze distant as if he were looking at something far, far away.  “I remember.  You got sick so often.”

“ya … was always sick, even when i wasn’t.”  He hadn’t understood it himself back then.  How can a child hope to grasp a concept like that, especially when it’s happening to them?  It was true though, he’d always been sick.  Even those rare times when he was whole and seemingly healthy, untroubled by fever and energetic enough to run and play with his little brother, it wasn’t like his condition had miraculously disappeared.  A broken floor isn’t fixed just because you toss a rug over the cracks.  The damage is always there, just out of sight, waiting to take everything down with it.  “i shouldn’t even be alive right now.”

Papyrus went rigid beside him, a gloved hand clutching at his sleeve.  “Don’t say that, brother.”

Sans shrugged where he sat, unconsciously pressing himself a bit closer to his sibling.  “it’s just how things are.  always knew it.  dad did too, but he wouldn’t accept it.  he was always taking me to doctors and healers when things got bad, but nothing could really fix me.  then, he found determination.”  

Gaster had always had a knack for doing the impossible, but what he’d done with that human magic was easily his most impressive and terrifying achievement.  It was a stupid thing to do, testing an unknown and volatile power on yourself.  It could have easily gotten him killed.  But, if it had been him, if Sans had been the one desperately seeking answers to try and save a child of his own, he couldn’t say he wouldn’t have done something just as stupid.  Hell, he couldn’t say he hadn’t done stupider things just to try and protect Papyrus.  And most of the time, gambles like that had worked out about as well for him as they had for his father.  He looked up at his brother, eyes burning with bright, white light.  “a power strong enough to surpass death.  that’s what saved me.  that’s why i’m alive, because dad took a lot of stupid risks that all three of us wound up paying for.”

A treacherous little voice in his mind told Sans that he wasn’t being entirely fair.  It might have been Gaster’s work that had started them on this path, but his own theories had propelled them far too quickly down it.  They’d pushed too far, letting themselves get swept away in the mysteries of that blood red magic and the secrets it held.  And in the end, it had destroyed his father and nearly destroyed him as well.  To say nothing of the innocent bystanders who’d fallen prey to the madness that had taken control of the soulless thing Gaster became.  All for what?  His life?  It just wasn’t worth it.  

“Why didn’t you tell me all this?  About you, and this power, and,” Papyrus faltered, reaching up to nervously tug at the worn, red fabric of his scarf.  “And our father.”

“i tried.”

“I’m sure I could have dealt with it.  If you’d only tried a little more, perhaps when I was older, then I’m certain I -”

Sans held up his hands, stopping the rambling flood of words that tumbled from his brother.  “no, pap.  i tried,” he said again, pouring all his conviction into those two simple words.  “i told you so many times, but you always forgot.  sometimes it didn’t even last a day.”

“That … that doesn’t make sense.”

Reluctantly, the older skeleton extracted himself from his sibling’s hold and turned to face him.  The blasters at his side shifted back, floating up into the air to give them a bit of space as the mood in the small cave turned serious.  “papyrus, i need you to listen very carefully, because i’m not sure i can explain this twice.”  He took a deep breath to try and steady his already racing magic.  “there was an accident.  at the core.  an explosion, i guess you could call it, that he got caught in.  it involved a lot of magic and a lot of determination.”  

“And a machine,” Papyrus said, his voice distant and small as his mind raced back to a day Sans had hoped he’d never remember.  “There was a terrible machine … and he … he fell.”  As he spoke, slowly piecing together the memories that had been stolen from him for so long, that dreamy distance was overtaken by sickened horror.  “We pushed him.”

Sans felt like his soul was breaking all over again.  “we had no choice,” he said, for once not even trying to hide his misery.  

“That wasn’t our father!  That was … “

“gaster.”  There was no point in hiding now.  The painful truth had already been dragged into the light.

Tears gathered in the corners of the younger skeleton’s eye sockets and Sans mentally kicked himself for the part he’d played in putting them there.  “It couldn’t have been him.”

“it wasn’t.  but, it was.”  Those words sounded like a pathetic excuse even to him.  Why did this have to be so complicated?  Why couldn’t his brother have forgotten all this forever?  “he’d lost his soul.“

Papyrus let out a little gasp.  “In the lab.  The one under our house.  There was an explosion and … ”  He shook his head vigorously as if that could somehow knock loose his mental cobwebs.  Or maybe he was just trying to shake free the tears clinging to his sockets.  “How could I have forgotten all this?”

“it’s not your fault.  something about that machine overloading in the core changed everything.  everyone forgot that he’d even existed.”

“Everyone but you.”

Sans turned away with a dry, hollow laugh.  “ya.  that’s determination for you, i guess.”

“I’ve had so many nightmares about that man.  I never thought … “  Papyrus wrapped his arms around himself, barely suppressing the little shudders that raced up his spine.  

“hey, it’s okay.”  Sans tugged on his brother’s wrists until he released his death grip, then took those gloved hands in his own.  “that wasn’t our dad.  not in the way that matters.”  There was no reason for them to mourn the loss of the stranger that had tormented them, at least that’s what he continued to tell himself.  The kind, brilliant, eccentric soul that had loved them so much died long before that awful night.  

“I suppose you’re right.  But, it’s still … Sans?”

It came up on him too fast to sense and far too fast to stop.  Sans tried to say something, to warn his brother that something was wrong, but sound refused to come from his open mouth.  His eye lights went out, flickering out of existence like candles in a storm, and a different light blaze bright in him instead.  He heard Papyrus calling him, worry slowly spiking in the younger skeleton’s voice, but it was all but blocked out as one by one his senses dulled.  He held tight, tighter, squeezing his brother’s fingers with all his limited strength until Papyrus couldn’t help but let out a little yelp of pain.  The sound broke through the haze that had taken hold of him, and Sans released his brother’s hands as fast as if they’d suddenly turned to hot lava.  He scooted backwards, pressing himself against the cavern wall, and covered his face with his hands.  A stray edge of rock pressed between his ribs but he didn’t care.  Shaking fingers hooked into his blind socket, tugging at the bone as spasms gripped his body.  Something was ringing in his skull, words without a voice repeating and choking out his own thoughts.  'Come to me.’

Something not unlike magic had hold of him.  It pulled at the artificial magic rooted in his soul, its influence stirring that power and sparking it into action.  The blasters hissed and snapped above him, their burning eyes darting around the shadowy cave now striped with the glow of magical light.  The influence of a mind separate from his own commanded him.  His body moved as if to stand, but he was shaking too hard to keep upright for long.  Someone caught him as he stumbled and he felt strong arms wrap around himself, forming an unbreakable band of bone around his small frame.  

His brother’s voice managed to get through the ringing in his skull.  “Sans?  Sans!?”

He tried to focus on the blurred sight of his brother’s worried face.  There was nothing he could say or do.  No reassurance he could offer.  Even knowing what was happening, he was powerless to stop it.  This was a familiar pain.  He knew all too well how it felt to have someone else reach deep into your soul and take hold of it.  The burning pain that came from resisting that force.  How that insistent pull made his magic burn and his soul shine bright as it was forcibly summoned against his will.  Summoned.  The word sparked a sickening realization.  He was being summoned!

“You can stop this.  I know you can.”

Well at least one of them believed in him.  Sans let out a broken little laugh that sounded a bit too much like a sob for his liking.  The blasters growled and snarled above him, deadly light blazing in their open mouths.  He felt the ties that bound them to him go taught, adding yet another twinge to the agony building inside him.  They were straining against his control, seeking to spring into action as they had been ordered to do.  Only, he hadn’t ordered them to do anything.  The other presence had.  The person who had hold of his soul called to the artificial magic.  Magic which had become an inextricable part of Sans.  There was no way he could deny it, no matter how much he might wish to; Gaster was summoning his weapons.  

At last the call ended and the unbearable pressure on his soul eased.  Sans let himself go limp in his sibling’s arms.  His soul pulsed fast and hot inside his chest, magic racing through him as his proper senses slowly returned.  He pressed his hands over his face again, pushing against his aching eye socket.  The heated bone there gave just a little when he pressed on it, sending a fresh, throbbing pain through his entire skull.  He groaned under his breath.  

“Sans, please talk to me.”

“’m okay,”

Gloved hands pried his own away and tilted his skull upwards.  His brother’s frown sent the clear and unmistakable message ‘I don’t believe that for an instant’.  “What was all that?  You’d said … b-back there on the surface, you said that … Gaster … “

“can’t be him.  he’s gone.”  But deep down, Sans knew that was just another lie.  One he desperately wished he could make true.  

“Then why did you think it was him?”

“'cus i … i felt him.”  There had been no mistaking it.  Only one other person could control the artificial magic of the blasters, and only one person had ever summoned him that way.  A powerful force of intent without the soul signature of a monster’s magic had wrapped itself around him, demanding and sickeningly familiar.  He’d felt its will, heard its command, and it was very, very determined.  “it was him.  but, it can’t be!”

Gaster had been gone for such a long time that he’d thought the man would never return, but now things were different.  Something had changed, though he wasn’t sure how.  A gentle hum of magic reached him, pulling Sans from his increasingly frantic thoughts.  It was the same silent melody that never failed to call him back from whatever darkness plagued his mind.  He let it in, a shaky sigh escaping him as the calming tones of blue wound their way through his magic.  

“Shh, it’s alright.  I’m here, and I won’t let him hurt you again.”  

Sans choked back a tiny sob.  He remembered hearing those words before.  There had been a small room, the stiff sheets and thin mattress of an infirmary cot, and the warm weight of his brother’s head resting on his chest.  It had been an impossible promise then and it still was now.  

“hey,” he managed to say, though his voice was a watery imitation of what it should have been, “i’m supposed to be the one protecting you, little bro.”  He prodded at the other skeleton’s ribs, earning a relieved little laugh for his trouble.  

“Well we shall have to take turns then, won’t we?”  Papyrus let the song wind down, each of them savoring subtle notes that could not be heard, only felt, until a calm quiet settled over the cavern once more.  From somewhere outside, there was the sound of shuffling footsteps and distant, worried chatter.  Sans would have been more than happy to ignore it, but his brother clearly wasn’t.  “I think the others are outside looking for us.  I heard Undyne’s voice a while ago, but … “ he cast a quick glance up at the trio of blasters which still circled them, clicking anxiously to themselves.  “I thought, perhaps, it would be best if we dealt with this ourselves first.”

“ya, i think you’re right.”  Sans pulled away from his brother’s grasp.  He instantly missed the grounding contact, but did his best not to let that show.  A short, sharp whistle and a hint of intent called the trio down to him.  “alright guys, time to go.”

The blasters whined.  They kept glancing around the cavern, on alert for any hint of danger, but calmed quickly enough when he got their attention focused on him instead.  Sans pet each one, letting the gentle touch convey his gratitude where words failed him.  Once he was sure the three of them were ready, he backed away and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.  It wasn’t exactly needed to issue the command he wanted, but it helped.  The three blasters each gave a little shiver before dissolving into small puffs of sparkling dust.  Sans felt the thin thread of their consciousness vanish, returning to wherever it was that the constructs went, and the mixed magic that pulsed almost too warm inside his soul began to cool.  

“Are you ready?” Papyrus asked as he stood as well.

“as i’ll ever be.”  Which was to say, not at all.  Still, Sans let the other skeleton lead him back to the edge of the surface without complaint.  He offered little more than a weak wave and a painted on smile as his brother called the others over.  Toriel looked so worried as Papyrus explained how they’d come here in search of a quiet place to calm the blasters, not entirely true, but a decent enough explanation, that Sans almost felt bad about running out on her before.  

Undyne looked down at him with a curious expression, one fist braced against her hip.  “What was going on with you anyway?  I didn’t see anything that looked like magic.  Other than yours, I mean.”

“someone was,” his voice faltered and Sans coughed to try and cover the moment of weakness.  He looked away, ashamed and unable to meet the imploring gazes of his friends.  “someone tried to summon me.”

“B-but,” Alphys stammered, concern and confusion dipping the corners of her mouth into a frown, “monsters can’t summon other monsters.”  

And wasn’t that just the icing on the cake.  It shouldn’t be possible to summon another monster, not even a small piece of one, but that’s exactly what had happened to him.  So then, what did that make him?  

Toriel reached down and placed her broad hand on his shoulder.  The touch was warm and gentle, but the small skeleton still tensed up a bit.  If the patient smile she gave him was any indication, Tori didn’t seem to mind.  “Please Sans.  We just want to help you, but we need to know what’s going on.”

Papyrus didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to.  Sans knew his brother wanted him to open up to their friends.  He could see it in the anxious tension in his stance and the way he glanced from person to person just waiting for someone to make the first move.  He also knew that, if he chose not to say anything, Papyrus wouldn’t be the one to spill his secrets.  If this was too much for him, his brother would let him leave.  The others, however … well Undyne at least wouldn’t let this go.  In the end, there really was no other choice but to tell them what he could and hope for the best.

“there’s a part of my magic, the stuff that’s responsible for the blasters, that’s … it’s not exactly … mine.”

Shocked little gasps echoed in the cavern.  “What,” asked Undyne, sounding surprisingly calm given what she’d just heard, “you stole some other monster’s magic?”

“not exactly.  they’re artificial, and the guy who had them before me,” he paused, not sure how much of this story he was willing to share.  “well, he shouldn’t have had them.  i didn’t mean to, but i sort of … bonded with them, i guess.  they’re part of me.”  

“So, this Gaster person you mentioned, they summoned those big skull things and because they’re bonded to you it summoned you too?”

“basically.”  For all Undyne’s casual bluntness, it was a simple and straightforward way to explain things.  The fact that it ignored how the summons affected his own soul as if he too were nothing more than a conjured weapon was an added bonus.  

“So we track him down, kick is ass, and tell him to stop.  Easy.”  The warrior flashed a confident grin.  If only it was that easy, but Sans knew better than to think a swift punch was all they’d need to fix this problem.

“Sans.”  A dark shadow fell across him and the small skeleton craned his neck to look up at the worried frown of the king of all monsters.  Asgore bent towards him, shoulders hunched as if the weight o the world pressed down upon him.  “Are you certain that it was Gaster?”

He suppressed a little shudder, not sure if he’d ever get used to hearing that name said out loud again.  Sans wanted to say no, that it couldn’t possibly be him because that man was gone, but he couldn’t.  There was no mistaking what he’d felt for anything else.  “positive.”

Alphys inched closer, nervous but intrigued none the less.  “I’ve heard of him, I t-think.”

“I haven’t,” Undyne said, crossing her arms.  She tapped her foot as if annoyed by the conversation.  Or perhaps she was just eager to go hunting for her newest target.  

A soft, embarrassed blush colored the smaller monster’s scales.  “W-well, you don’t pay that much attention to most scientists, r-right?”  Her eyes suddenly widened and a faint trace of electric yellow magic sparked along the wire frames of her glasses.  “Ooh, that’s right!  He was the royal scientist!”

“He was,” the king said softly, letting his words trail away as a troubled look took hold of his features.  Brown eyes flickered to the skeleton brothers, and Sans knew that he’d remembered the connection they shared.  

Asgore wasn’t the type to go telling other peoples secrets so long as he could help it.  Sans was grateful for that, for a number of different reasons.  If he let this go, he might be able to hide that piece of the truth from the others.  They didn’t have to know, right?  What difference did it make who Gaster had once been?  That was no one’s business but his and his brother’s.  Still, for better or worse, they were aware of him now.  They’d inserted themselves in this situation for his sake, and that meant that, one way or another, they would likely find out the truth.  Sans heaved a weary sigh.  “he was our dad.”

Toriel’s hand gripped his shoulder tighter.  Sans couldn’t bring himself to look at her, not wanting to know if she remembered as well, and looked to his sibling instead.  Papyrus trembled ever so slightly, his gaze downcast.  Seeing his distress, Frisk stepped away from their mother’s shadow and wrapped their small arms around his legs.  The briefest moment of panic raced through Sans but he fought it off.  They weren’t going to hurt his brother.  This was Frisk, not the other entity that had lurked behind their eyes for far too long.  Frisk was a friend.  He did still have some doubts, to be honest he wasn’t sure if he’d ever banish them entirely, but the heartbroken look on their face as they tried to comfort Papyrus was proof enough that, for now at least, their intentions were good.  The lanky skeleton reached down and patted the small human’s head fondly, a ghost of his normal, confident smile returning to his features.  

Not one to let others wallow in negativity, Undyne spoke up to set them all back on track.  “If he was such an important guy, then how come I haven’t heard of him till now?”

“Everyone forgot about him.”  Papyrus glanced down at his brother, taking in his darkened eye sockets and how he’d begun to clench his jaw so hard that it hurt.  Sans wasn’t up to telling this story again.  Hell, he’d barely been up to it the first time.  Thankfully, Papyrus was willing to step up for him this time.  “There was an accident that involved a lot of very dangerous magic.  He was … sent away, somehow.”

“L-like, out of the underground?” Alphys asked, her claws tapping nervously against her knuckles.  

“more like out of existence,” Sans said with a dry, humorless laugh.  “gone without a trace.  every record.  every picture.”  His gaze darted up to his meet his brother’s.  “every memory.”

“Then why can we remember him now?” Toriel asked, her worry more than obvious in her somber tone.

“because he’s back.”  Sans shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to play off the seriousness of what he’d just said with a casual shrug.  “or, some part of him anyway.  don’t ask me how, i don’t have the answers.  i just know what i felt.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”  Undyne tilted her head to the side, her long red hair swaying behind her.  “Shouldn’t you be glad to see him?  Or, feel him, or whatever?”

“i said part of him’s back,” Sans said darkly, his eye sockets blank and cold.  “just my luck it’s not the good part.”

A chill settled over their small group as the dark implications of his words sank in.  Alphys fidgeted where she stood, the tip of her tail flicking anxiously.  “W-what does all this mean?”

“It means,” Asgore said slowly, glancing out of the cave’s entrance at the distant light of twinkling stars high above them, “that, perhaps, we should hold off on our introductions for now.”

Undyne all but whipped around to stare at the king, her hands thrust out in a gesture that showed her disbelief just as much as her raised voice did.  “You’re not suggesting we stay down there, are you?  After everything we went through?!”

“Only for now.  It might be for the best, really, if we take this slow.”

“Asgore’s right,” Toriel said, though it looked like it pained her a little to admit it.  “We need to get this sorted out.  And it would be wise to approach reintroducing ourselves to the humans slowly.  First, we should handle things down here.  Spread the word through the underground and warn everyone not to go charging their way to the surface all at once.  That would only cause panic, and that is the last thing we need.”

The king looked almost relieved to have someone else taking charge, and he nodded in agreement.  “I think I can handle that.  Alphys, do you think Mettaton could be persuaded to help?”

The small scientist snickered as she adjusted her glasses.  “Ooh, I think he’d be happy to.”

“I’d like your help as well, if you could.  Just to make sure the Core is running smoothly.”  Asgore didn’t say why, but each of them knew the reason for his seemingly pointless request; he was afraid.  Gaster had been the royal scientist once, one of the brilliant minds behind the creation of the Core that powered the underground, and Sans had made it clear to them that the piece of him that once more existed in their reality was not to be trusted.  If the corrupted former scientist was so inclined, then he could do some serious damage there.  

“i, uh,” Sans muttered, feeling more than a little awkward when the others focused their attention back onto him, “i think i’ll just find someplace to hang out for a while.  you know, wait this whole mess out.  maybe catch a nap.”

“Not alone you won’t,” said Papyrus, his scarf all but fluttering behind him as he struck a heroic pose.  “I shall be with you to keep you safe, brother.”

Well there went his plan of sneaking off when no one was looking and finding a nice deep hole to hide in.  Logically he knew he shouldn’t be around others until Gaster had been dealt with, one way or another.  The risk of him unintentionally summoning and firing the blasters on an innocent monster was too great.  Still, Sans found himself looking up at his little brother with a smile that was actually genuine.  “thanks bro.”

“I’ll go with these dorks,” Undyne said with her typical bravado as she gave papyrus a friendly if forceful slap on the back.  “For protection.”

“I think I will as well.”  Toriel regarded Sans with a small smile.  “If I can, I’d like to be of help to my friend.”  

Something warm fluttered in the small skeleton’s soul.  Tori had no reason to go out of her way to watch over him.  None of them did, with the possible exception of Papyrus, yet here they were, his friends, facing unknown dangers for his sake.  “that’s, um, really not necessary you guys.”

“You might need someone to stop you if you’re summoned that way again.  And if I were in your place, I wouldn’t want to be alone knowing that someone who can do that to me is roaming around.”  

Sans really wanted to argue with her, but he couldn’t.  Truth be told, he was terrified of the thought of the soulless specter that still haunted his dreams finding him once again.  The only thing that scared him more was the thought of that same person hurting his friends.  Or worse yet, using him to do the job.  He shivered a little at the thought.  

“Frisk,” Toriel said as she knelt beside the small human, “I know you aren’t used to the underground like we are, and I’m sure you’re eager to get back to the surface.  If you’d like to, you can wait for us there.”  

“I want to stay with you,” they said in a small but ooh so sincere voice.  Frisk rarely spoke, they all knew that, and it made the words they did choose to voice mean so much more.

“It’s settled then,” Papyrus said, his own voice rising back to its normal, conspicuous volume.  “The five of us shall stay together for now, and if anyone or anything should come after my brother again we will find a way to stop it.”  

'but what if you can’t?’ the small skeleton thought as the others chattered to one another, preparing to part ways and confirming hastily made plans.  'what if i can’t stop myself next time?  what if i lose control?  what if he makes me hurt you?’  There had to be something else he could do, if not to cut the tie that bound him to Gaster then at least to make sure that the man couldn’t use him the way he wanted to.  He couldn’t just let himself be useless this time.  There was too much at stake.  

“Brother?  Are you coming?”

Sans glanced over his shoulder, drinking in the sight of those twinkling stars one last time, and headed down into the darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, another chapter done. I know, this part took soooo long for me to write, but so much happens in it that I really wanted to take my time and get it right (plus it turned out extra long). So, hopefully you guys will like it too. Now that it’s done, it’s back to the babyblaster verse for me~. (Also, I’m playing with Gaster’s text, if it doesn’t work or is too hard to read I’ll switch it back)
> 
> P.S. I'm SO sorry that I haven't been answering comments. D: Things were so busy for me for such a long time, I just didn't have the focus or energy for it. But I'm really going to try and get back to doing that again. N-not the older comments from previous chapters ... only because I feel way too awkward to try and respond to those now ... but, any new ones. I'll do my best, because I really do appreciate each and every comment you wonderful people have sent my way. <3

Sans trudged down the hall, dragging his feet on the worn blue carpet.  The familiar surroundings of his Snowdin home should have been a comfort after the chaos his life had all too rapidly dissolved into, but instead he just felt tired.  Drained.  Numb.  He stumbled his way into the bathroom and groped blindly for the light switch until a warm glow lit the space.  Immediately, he shielded his eyes with his hand.  Even that weak light seemed to stab into his aching sockets.  He shuffled to the sink, infinitely grateful that he’d managed to convince his brother that this one didn’t need to be ‘improved’ like the one in their kitchen, and twisted the knob.  Water began to flow, filling the room with soothing sound.  Sans cupped his hands beneath it, pressing his thin bones close together until he’d collected a small pool of clear, cold water.  With one quick motion, he brought his hands up and splashed the water onto his face.  The skeleton shivered as cool liquid dripped down his skull and soaked into his shirt.  He braced himself against the sink, leaning heavily against its smooth surface.  He could do this.  He just had to keep it together.  

Uneven breaths rattled in his chest.  Slowly, he raised his head.  The reflection that stared back at him looked even worse than he felt.  His eye lights were nothing but dim, flickering spots.  Stains of dark blue magic shadowed his sockets where the bone had become discolored and soft.  Water and sweat dripped down his neck.  His eternal smile was strained, tightened into a pained grimace that he could not manage to banish.  As he stared, he slowly became aware of something else.  Something that wasn’t right.  There was a foreign edge to his joyless smile that was oddly sharp.  Almost … pointed.

A sudden piercing sound made him jump as his reflection suddenly broke.  Cracks splintered along the image, streaking in opposite directions from each of his wide, terrified sockets.  Sans stumbled backwards, his gaze fixed on the broken glass.  Only, the cracks moved with him.  They weren’t in the glass at all.  A splintering sound like thick ice slowly breaking to pieces echoed in his skull.  Shaking fingers clutched at his face, digging into new fractures that split bone.  

Sans screamed as he bolted upright.  The mattress gave under his weight, making him bounce ever so slightly.  He was in his bedroom, he realized as the nightmare slowly released him.  He lifted a shaking hand to his face, hesitantly pressing his fingers beneath his left socket.  There was nothing there but drying tears.  

“Sans?” Papyrus called, rapid footsteps getting louder as he hurried down the hall.  He paused only for a moment, knocking on the door out of a mix of habit and unrelenting politeness before just opening it anyway.  The younger skeleton stood silhouetted in the doorway, anxiously shifting his weight from foot to foot as he scanned the room for any hints of danger.  “Are you alright?”

Sans quickly scrubbed at his face, not quite managing to erase the lingering signs of his fear but doing his best to at least mask them as exhaustion.  “y-ya, i’m fine.”

“I thought I heard you scream.”

The older brother tilted his head down, hiding the natural flinch that crossed his features.  Had the entire household heard him?  “it was just a dream, that’s all.”

Sans wasn’t surprised by the sad frown the dominated his sibling’s features, but that didn’t make it any easier to see.  Papyrus quietly closed the door behind him before making his way over, stepping around discarded socks and stray papers without his normal chastisement.  “Maybe you should get some more rest.”

“can’t.”  Ooh he wanted to, the siren call of sleep was as tempting as ever even with how shaken his nightmare had made him, but this time he couldn’t allow himself to follow it.  “shouldn’t have let myself fall asleep at all.”

“But you were so tired,” Papyrus said, guiltily wringing his gloved hands.

“that’s kinda the point, bro.”

After his initial plan to find some abandoned cavern, seal himself in it, and wait for all this to blow over had been shot down, they’d needed to come up with some other way of making sure Sans didn’t lose control.  And what they’d come up with was, in his opinion, a stroke of genius, even if he did kind of regret his part in coming up with it.  If he had no energy left to summon the blasters, then they couldn’t be used against him or his friends.  It was a simple, elegant solution that, unfortunately, meant he couldn’t indulge in things like food or sleep that would naturally restore his magic levels.  It also meant that he’d had to get rather creative when it came to expending all that magical energy in the first place.  A long abandoned cave system south of Waterfall was sporting several new. large craters thanks to his efforts.  It had almost been worth it all to see the look of shocked amazement on Undyne’s face.  Now he just had to avoid recharging until either Gaster was banished back to whatever strange pocket dimension he’d escaped from or one of the two of them dusted.  You know, whichever came first.

“Her majesty,” Papyrus visibly stopped himself shaking his head a little as he remembered that the boss monster in question didn’t like to be called that any more, “I mean, miss Toriel said it would be alright to let you rest for a few hours.”  He fidgeted anxiously, as if he were afraid that Sans might truly be angry with him.  “I don’t want to see you make yourself ill over this.”

Sans opened his mouth to protest, but one look at his brother’s pleading expression and the fight drained out of him.  He sighed, unwilling to waist what little energy his unplanned nap had given him on arguing.  Besides, it wasn’t like he could blame his brother for being cautious.  Papyrus was still sifting through his restored memories, piecing together the disjointed facts of their childhood to uncover a truth that had been kept from him for so many years.  It couldn’t be pleasant.  

“any news from alphys?” he asked instead.  

“Not yet.  She did say she’d let us know if anything turned up though, so I suppose no news is good news.”  Papyrus let out a pale imitation of his normal, boisterous laugh.  

When they’d first arrived at the house, Papyrus carrying a thoroughly exhausted Sans on his back, the streets of Snowdin had been flooded with excited monsters sharing the big news.  Now, the town beyond their door was eerily still.  It apparently hadn’t taken very long for king Asgore to put his plans into motion, a fact which Sans was grateful for.  Mettaton was putting his so called star power to good use, flooding the airwaves with the news about the barrier and urging everyone to remain calm.  Citizens were being instructed to either stay in their homes until further notice or come to the MTT Resort just outside New Home.  The structure seemed like a decent enough gathering spot for monsters eager to catch their first glimpse of the surface, especially since it was one of the few buildings in the underground large enough to handle that kind of crowd.  Sans was worried about how close it was to the Core facility, but Alphys had called a while back and assured them that the path between the hotel and the Core was closed for the time being and would remain that way until the 'Gaster situation’ had been dealt with.  

She’d called again after finishing her first round of inspections on the Core itself, saying that everything looked fine and there were no signs of tampering.  It wasn’t that Sans didn’t believe her, he knew Alphys was trustworthy regardless of her own sometimes unflattering opinion of herself, but he was still anxious none the less.  They had no way of knowing what Gaster was up to or what had brought him back, and until they found that out everyone had to be ready for anything.

The mattress dipped as Papyrus sat beside him.  “Don’t worry brother, everything’s going to be alright.  Undyne, miss Toriel, and I will protect you.  That man won’t have a chance against the three of us.”

'That man’.  Not 'Gaster’.  Not 'the twisted shell of a monster that used to be our dad’.  Sans leaned against his brother, resting his head on the taller skeleton’s shoulder.  “ya,” he said softly, though he didn’t believe his own words, “i know you will.”

—–

A dark figure hurried along silent corridors.  He darted from shadow to shadow, his inky black form blending in with natural darkness of the caves.  Pale hands pressed against rock as he stopped to hide himself behind an uneven outcropping of stone.  His body trembled, chest rising and falling in a useless, half-remembered reflex.  He was not afraid, not really, but being powerless left him anxious in a way nothing else could.  Even soulless creatures know to protect themselves.  He needed his weapons.  They still existed somewhere, he could feel their presence when he called for them, yet time and time again the artificial magic he’d once shaped refused his call.  

The strange tie that connected him to the constructs had been weak at first, made brittle and worn by disuse, but he could feel it becoming stronger with each attempt.  It should have been enough to summon at least one blaster to his side, yet he remained alone.  Something else held them back.  Some other willpower had hold of his creations, and that just would not do.  

He focused on his magic once more, sparking that tie to life and sending a faint burst of intent through it.  Not enough to summon, there was no point in that for now, but just enough to make it flare to life.  He felt the pulse of magic as it arced away from him, following it down the long, winding paths of  labyrinthine caves.  If his weapons would not come to him, then he would have to go claim them himself.  

—–

Papyrus did not like to be still.  It wasn’t that he couldn’t appreciate the silence doing nothing brought with it, honestly he did see the appeal in that sort of quiet self-reflection, it just wasn’t for him.  His mind was always working, thoughts racing past to fill that silence, reminding him of everything he could and should be doing with his time.  There was so much to do and never enough hours in the day to accomplish it all, so why waist a single one?  On any normal day, he would be buzzing about the house right now doing his daily chores, making sure things were as neat and tidy as they could be considering his brother’s slovenly habits.  Even now he itched to do his rounds, as he knew their home was certainly not fit for company.  But, doing so would mean leaving Sans on his own once more, and that was something Papyrus just couldn’t bring himself to do.  

It was obvious that Sans needed him to stay, even though the older skeleton would never say as much.  At first it had seemed like the comforting presence of his brother might be enough to let him rest, as it hadn’t taken long for his dim eye lights to flicker out as he surrendered to exhaustion.  Unfortunately it hadn’t lasted long.  He’d started trembling after only a few minutes, his expression pinched with something almost like pain as his breathing became strained.  Papyrus had woken him with a little shake and held him close, running a hand down his spine until he calmed.  Since then, Sans had settled into an uneven pattern of sorts, slowly drifting off only for that unseen fear to wake him time and time again.  Papyrus couldn’t tell if it was the night terrors trying to return or something to do with the influence Gaster’s magic had over him.  He hoped it was the former.  

So when his sleeping sibling tensed against him, letting out a breathy whimper as he pressed his skull against the taller skeleton’s side, Papyrus wasn’t surprised.  At least, not until Sans jolted awake with a sharp gasp.  Fatigue no longer pulled at his features, but though he was awake he didn’t seem fully aware.  Something was different.  Sans pushed away from him, stumbling to his feet.  His flickering eye lights darted around the room, searching for a presence that was not there.  The sound of rattling bones filled the tense silence.

“Sans?” Papyrus asked as he stood, a knot of dread tightening in his chest.  “What’s wrong?”

The other skeleton looked back, eye sockets wide as the light within them slowly expanded into hollow-centered rings.  Papyrus sensed the buildup of magic around him, but it was already too late.  Light flashed before his eyes.  He lunged forward, hand outstretched, but all he felt was the tingle of magically charged air.  Sans was gone.  

“UNDYNE!” Papyrus screamed as he darted out of the room and sprinted down the hallway.  His soul was pounding with barely restrained panic.  As he raced down the stairs, long legs taking them two at a time, he saw his friend vault over the side of the couch in her haste to meet him.  

“What’s goin’ on?” she demanded, her own magic sparking around her.

“Sans teleported again,” Papyrus said as he barreled towards the front door, barely managing to avoid crashing into the other monster but unwilling to wait for her to move.  “Come on, he couldn’t have gotten very far!”

Normally, when his brother used one of his space-time shortcuts, there was no telling where he’d wind up.  Sans could warp from one end of the underground to the other, stopped only by the barrier that prevented any magical being from passing through it.  But at the moment, he didn’t have enough power to even get out of Snowdin.  At least, that’s what Papyrus hoped.  

“Please stay here my child,” he heard Toriel say as he burst through the door and out into the snow, “I can’t put you in danger again.”

Though he didn’t look back to make sure the warning was heeded, Papyrus was grateful to the former queen for making sure Frisk stayed put.  He had no idea what they were getting into, and the last thing he wanted was to put his young human friend in harm’s way.  There had been quite enough of that lately.

The skeleton ran down abandoned streets, the footsteps of his friends crunching through the snow behind him, weaving between houses and through trees in search of anything that might show he was going the right way.  “There!” he called to the others as a familiar figure up ahead caught his attention.  “I see him!”

Sans looked so small without the normal bulk of his blue jacket.  His faded shirt and pale bones were all but lost in the blanket of winter white.  If it weren’t for his black shorts, Papyrus might have missed him entirely, but there was no way anyone could miss the tall, dark figure creeping out of forest towards him.

Papyrus sprinted as fast as he could, his lightweight form and long limbs propelling him over the thick snow drifts.  He called to his brother, screaming the older skeleton’s name, but Sans did not respond.  Undyne and Toriel were hot on his heels, unwilling to let the deep snow that sought to swallow up their feet with every step make them lag too far behind.  He could feel their magic flaring behind him, the presence of heat and crackling energy at his back oddly reassuring.  

“Stop right there you creep!” Undyne screamed.  An instant later, a glowing teal spear shot through the air, raining down from above like a bolt from the heavens.  It struck the snow between Sans and the mysterious figure, the gleaming magical weapon acting as a barrier between the two.  The shadowy figure remained where it was, neither angered nor frightened by the sudden attack.  Sans, however, stepped back in alarm and looked behind him, finally aware of the other monsters rushing to his aid.  Now free of its wielder’s grasp, the teal construct couldn’t last long, but it stayed solid just long enough for their rescue party to catch up.  Papyrus arrived just as the spear’s light began to flicker out and stood in its place.  

The thing that stood before him didn’t look much like a monster, let alone the man that Papyrus was still struggling to remember.  The father he’d lost had been a skeleton like himself, tall and often imposing but with a warm, if hesitant, smile and a bright glow that would spark in his eye sockets whenever some new discovery captured his attention.  Even the  man Gaster had become, the stranger that haunted his nightmares for so long, had been similar, though his once smooth features had been marred by deep cracks.  The individual Papyrus saw before him now was unlike anything he’d ever seen.  There were still some hints of the man he’d once known, if he looked hard enough.  Long cracks split a pale, mask-like face that had long since lost the fine details of the skull it had previously been.  Drooping sockets stared at him, unblinking and hollow.  White hands baring the faintest suggestion of individual bones hung at his sides, the palms marked by large, smooth holes.  But, that was all.  The rest of what passed for the man’s body was nothing more than a slick, black mass more reminiscent of slime than skeleton.  This couldn’t truly be W. D. Gaster … could it?

Toriel gasped as she and Undyne reached them, her normal, powerful grace giving way to an unsteady wobble.  Though the guardswoman urged her on, more than ready to attack first and ask questions later, she seemed oddly transfixed by the stranger before them.  “Doctor Gaster?” she asked breathlessly, too stunned by his appearance to manage much more than a whisper, “is it really you?”

The man paused, his hunched, drooping back straightening as he rose to his full height.  He tilted his head slightly, empty sockets focusing on the former queen, and slowly nodded.  

“Dad?”  The younger skeleton asked despite himself.  That hollow stare turned to focus on him and he could all but feel the weight of it.  The man’s featureless slash of a mouth twitched, the corners tugged upwards in a parody of a smile.

“ Pa̸̷p̷̢̕yr͘ù̕s̀́,” he said slowly.  His voice was strange, the sounds raspy and distorted in a way that should have rendered them completely incomprehensible.  And yet, Papyrus understood them.  There was something so familiar in that voice.  He was absolutely sure he’d heard it before, though not quite the same way.  It should have been softer, smoother, the sounds almost static-like but still understandable if you listened closely.  Not warped and twisted into this guttural mess that only vaguely resembled the voice he’d once found such comfort in.

Gaster turned towards the smaller skeleton and the same spark of recognition pulling at his features once more.  “ S̕ą̷n͘͝s͘͞.”  

For just a moment, Papyrus thought that perhaps there had been nothing to fear at all.  He dared to believe that maybe his father would remember them and decide to stop whatever he’d been doing that had caused Sans so much distress.  But his hopes were quickly dashed.  Whatever happiness seeing them had brought the man, it was short lived.  His expression twisted, his grin melting into a crooked frown.  The air shimmered with telltale traces of magic as a pair of disembodied hand constructs manifested above him.  

“ Y̷ou ̵stol͜e t͢he҉m,” he said as the hands gestured along with the words, his tone dark like the warning growl of a large animal.  “ Ģive̛ ͝t̸h̕em̢ ̶b͢ack̶.”

Sans staggered back a step, his eye sockets wide and empty.  He sputtered something that might have been 'i didn’t’, but the words died out too quickly for anyone to be sure.  It was strange to see him this shaken.  Papyrus had been with his brother after countless nightmares, calming him down as the dreams he refused to talk about left him sweating and trembling, but this?  This was different.  

Undyne edged forward, her tall frame braced and ready for battle.  Teal light flashed and shaped itself into another spear, this one held tight in her hands.  Gaster seemed to glance towards her, though it was hard to tell with his dark, empty sockets, and his frown twisted into an angry sneer.  He held up a hand in an unmistakable summoning gesture, its floating counterpart mirroring the motion.  Undyne and Papyrus both tensed, alert and ready for whatever volley of projectiles the man’s magic might call forth.  Only, it didn’t happen.  There were no bones nor bullets aimed towards them, only a magical light so darkly red that it looked almost black.  

It was the sound that made Papyrus look away, a muffled groan drawing his attention to the brother he’d come to rescue.  Sans stood there shaking, hands clenched into fists at his sides, unfocused eye lights blown into wide rings.  This close, it was impossible to deny that the man standing before them was responsible for his distress.  Papyrus could sense the energy between them as Gaster’s strange magic pulled at his sibling’s soul.  He felt the power around them, raw magic sparking as something beyond his brother’s control commanded him to summon his own constructs.  A pale blue glow ghosted through the air.  For a moment, Papyrus thought he saw a glimpse of the blasters, but the image faded so quickly that he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just his imagination.  Magic sparkled and flashed, trying to draw energy from Sans but finding his normally impressive reserves completely drained.  The younger skeleton let out a breathless laugh of relief.  They’d really done it.  

Even with the blasters beyond his reach, it seemed that Gaster wasn’t ready to give up just yet.  Magic streamed between the two, lighting up the air with angry, red sparks.  Sans held up his hands as if warding off a strong wind and a hint of blue radiated out from his palms.  It bled into the display, twining through the embers of red magic and slowly pushing them back.  

“E̛n͝ou͘gh̴ o͡f̸ ͞t͝his!” the man yelled, his voice hissing and popping with otherworldly static.  Magic flashed, blazing bright between them.  Papyrus could feel the force of it pushing him back as it flowed out like a wave, kicking up a billowing cloud of snow.  It overpowered the weak trickle of blue energy with ease.  Red light slammed into Sans and he dropped to his knees, letting out a choked scream as the foreign magic flooded into him.  

Papyrus watched in stunned horror.  Something about this was familiar.  He’d seen that sharp grimace before.  He knew the way it twisted the smaller skeleton’s features.  His brother shouldn’t have fangs, but sometimes, when pain gripped his soul and nightmares trapped his mind so far away that even Papyrus couldn’t reach him, he did.  

Sans curled himself into a tight ball, twitching and shuddering as the sound of creaking bone rose above his own pained groans.  Papyrus knelt near him, but as he reached out to his sibling a sudden, sharp crack made him flinch away.  Sans screamed, the sound louder than anything he’d ever heard from the smaller skeleton.  He pressed his face into the ground, seemingly unaware of the scrapes the action left behind on his skull.  

“What are you doing to him?!” Papyrus demanded, clenched fists shaking from the force of his anger.

The man grinned with something akin to excitement.  More hands winked into existence around him, spelling out his words with precise, controlled movements.  “Ev̸e̸n I̛ ̀do͘n't҉ know͝. Įt̢'s̴ fa͢sçi͟nat̡i̵ng, ìs̵n̵'t͟ ͝i̶t͝?”

Papyrus felt like his soul was sinking into a deep, dark pit.  He reached for his brother’s hand, but it wasn’t a hand anymore.  Instead he found sharp claws which flinched away from his touch.  The small skeleton arched his lengthening spine as the subtle protrusions that studded his vertebra sharpened into wicked spikes.  Sans looked up at him, large eye sockets darkened and wet with tears.  He opened his mouth but before he could speak a loud cracking sound rang out as his lower jaw was suddenly split down the middle.  His warping features froze in agony.  A scream died in his throat only to break free a moment later as a second crack opened up just above his nasal bone, racing up between his sockets.

Shaking off her own shock, Toriel knelt beside them.  Her large hands ghosted over Sans, healing green light pouring out of her palms and soaking into shaking bone, but even her powerful magic could not manage to stop the foreign energy coursing through him.  He moaned and arched under their touch, writhing on the snow covered ground as his bones distorted into new, strange shapes.

She wasn’t the only one spurred into action either.  With a sudden spike of energy and a loud scream of rage, Undyne leapt towards Gaster.  A rain of shining teal spears flashed into existence around her and launched themselves at the man responsible for the waking nightmare they had found themselves trapped in.  Gaster twisted away from them, his fluid body bending to avoid the attack in ways only a slime monster should have been capable of.  Undyne landed in a crouch only to spring to her feet again, spinning as she rose in a maneuver as graceful as it was powerful.  Her leg whipped through the air and struck the man’s side, connecting with a solid thunk.  

For just a moment it looked like she might have won, but Gaster did not crumble like so many would have under the force of her attack.  His hunched form slowly straightened, pale, broken face turning to stare down at her.  Undyne’s vicious smirk melted into a frightened grimace as she found herself unable to pull away.  The otherworldly black tar that comprised the man’s body clung to her leg, drawing her in and keeping her pinned in place.  

“Yǫu should̕n'͟t ͏háv͏e ͜do͞né ͟t́h̸at,” Gaster rasped, a pair of hands sinking down in front of Undyne to sign the words directly to her.  

The guardswoman shoved him away, though the action did little more than unbalance her and send her toppling to the ground, one leg still trapped in the sticky, black ooze.  With an angry growl, she summoned up another spear and thrust it directly into her opponent’s side.  Gaster hissed in pain, smoke pouring from the wound.  The dark tar of his body seemed to roil around the injury, pulling back and finally releasing his captive.  Undyne quickly rolled out of his grasp.  She pushed herself up only to drop into a crouch.  The material of her pant leg was charred and sticky with her own blood.

Gaster slid backwards towards the trees, his wary stare firmly fixed on Undyne.  He raised a hand which was barely connected to his body by a thin, oozing excuse for an arm and dark red light glimmered around it.  Papyrus felt Sans tense beside him, his hunched spine twitching.  A wave of energy rose up from him and he vanished, reappearing at Gaster’s feet.  

“P҉r͞ot͝ect̴ m̛e͟,” the man said, his broken voice pitched ever so slightly higher as he edged further away from the woman that had managed to do him harm.  

The skeleton before them didn’t look like Sans anymore.  He didn’t even look like a skeleton, at least not as Papyrus knew them.  He rose shakily, balancing on four oddly jointed limbs.  His elongated skull, tipped in curving crests so very like the constructs they shared, tilted to the side like a poorly strung puppet.  Sharp claws dug into the ground.  A long tail studded with spikes twitched and snaked through the snow.  Raw magic dripped from vaguely canine jaws, oozing between sharpened teeth.  

“S-sans?” Papyrus stammered.  “Brother?”

The creature’s head whipped up, a ring of light blazing to life in a single eye socket.  The others watched transfixed as the unmistakable hue of Sans’s magic seeped into that light, staining it bright blue.  Long jaws parted with a breathy hiss, steaming liquid dripping out onto the snow as magic light began to build inside them.  

Suddenly, green light flared around the creature that Sans had become.  His soul manifested with a quiet 'ping’ of sound as Undyne’s power took hold of it.  Its white glow surrounded a core of pulsing red, but even that was quickly swallowed up as the soul was tinted with the deep emerald of her magic.  Sans fought against her hold, straining and thrashing as much as he was able, but his limbs had been locked in place.  A shield manifested around him.  Papyrus had been on the receiving end of Undyne’s green magic enough times to know that the shield was largely under the control of the person it guarded and would react to protect them from whatever threat they deemed most dangerous.  This time, however, that control seemed to be lacking.  It swept wildly back and forth, leaving a blurring after image behind as it arced around the frantic creature.  

Undyne forced herself upright and summoned another spear.  She clutched the glowing weapon so tight it was a miracle the construct didn’t shatter.  “We’ve gotta stop him before he attacks somebody.”

“No!”  Papyrus leapt up, latching onto his friend’s arm as if that alone could somehow hold her at bay.  “You can’t, you’ll hurt him!”

It would have been simple for Undyne to shrug him off and keep going.  She could probably just charge forward without even bothering, dragging his lanky form behind her.  Instead she stopped, her single eye gazing down at him with unexpected sympathy.  “I’ll be careful.”

“No, Papyrus is right,” said Toriel, fear underscoring her otherwise authoritative tone.  A haze of magic sparkled around her for a moment, making her eyes flash as she used her power to see what they could not.  “Even one good hit could kill him.  It’s too risky.”

“Well then what are we supposed to do?  I can’t hold him like this forever.”

Waves of powerful magic built up around the former queen, whipping her fur and making the heavy skirts of her robes billow.  The hesitation Papyrus had seen in her eyes when they’d first encountered Gaster was gone.  Former friend or not, she refused to allow this atrocity to continue.  “We stop the one responsible for this.”

Balls of fire appeared one by one around her, burning bright with shifting shades of orange and yellow.  They arced through the air, fanning out in all directions and curving around the trapped creature in order to strike at the man hiding behind him.  Gaster dodged them the same way he had the spears, but it was clear from his nervous glances that he was afraid.  

The last thing Papyrus wanted to do was take his eyes off his brother, but he knew that Sans was as safe as he could be at the moment.  Undyne would keep him contained and her shield would prevent any stray projectiles from hitting him.  Hopefully.  But doing so meant that she couldn’t help them fight without splitting her focus to a dangerous degree, and Papyrus wasn’t about to make Toriel face Gaster alone.  He had to do something to help.  

He summoned his own attacks, white and blue bones sprouting from the ground at his feet and racing towards his target.  Under his command, they lengthened into tall spires that snaked across the ground in a sinuous wave, curving in carefully chosen paths around the other monsters present.  Gaster ducked down, evading another blast of magic fire, and accidentally backed into a glowing blue bone.  The man let out a garbled hiss and turned, sweeping out a hand to knock the next few constructs away before dodging out of their path.  

Papyrus didn’t often call on the 'big guns’, as Sans sometimes put it.  He didn’t think it fair to use his special attacks on ordinary opponents when there was such a high probability of someone getting hurt.  This time, however, the notion of hurting the man before him didn’t seem so bad.  Gaster might have been his father once, but the father he remembered would never have attacked them this way.  His dad would never have done something so terrible to another monster.  And he certainly would never have been excited to see his own son screaming in agony.  Anger took hold of the skeleton’s soul, so hot and powerful that it was nearly overwhelming.  His magic flared, flashing in his eye sockets as he called on his own connection to the blasters.  

But the blasters did not come.  All he felt was a whisper of their normal power, the suggestion of something familiar reaching towards him but unable to go any further.  Papyrus was so used to the living constructs appearing at his call, magic charged and ready to attack anything that might wish to do him harm, that he was surprised by their absence.  Then he remembered his brother’s words from the other day.  'they’re part of me.’  The blasters existed on their own, and yet they didn’t.  Their essence was tied to Sans, rooted in the very core of his being, and now that essence that had overwhelmed him completely.  

Shaking off that grim realization and how oddly powerless being cut off from the blasters made him feel, Papyrus saw Toriel ready another attack and knew that this was his chance.  He summoned not a wave but a wall of bone, the white constructs rising up behind Gaster in a tall, curved barrier.  By the time the man noticed the attack, he’d already been trapped by it.  A ball of fire shot from Toriel’s outstretched hand, quickly followed by another and another until a storm of burning magic spheres were hurtling towards their target.  Gaster did his best to dodge, but penned in as he was, he couldn’t avoid them all.  He thrust his hands up to shield his face.  The fire struck him and he let out a warped hissing sound of pain.  The white, bone-like flesh of his hands did not blacken under the intense heat, but instead began to steam and boil.  A shrill scream of static pierced the air.  The man shrank back, seeming to fold in on himself as he did.  His hunched frame sagged and dripped like his very body was melting into a large black puddle that stained the ground.  And then, before the shocked monsters knew what was happening, he was gone without a trace.  

“Papyrus!”

Undyne’s sudden shout snapped him back to reality and the skeleton whipped around just in time to see her restraining magic begin to fail.  The shield vanished, crumbling into a puff of pale dust as the green color holding the creature’s soul faded.  The thing Sans had become shook himself free of Undyne’s control.  He snarled and snapped, back bent into a narrow arch, spiked tail whipping behind him.  The creature took a wavering step towards them, growling low as raw magic dripped from between his teeth.  

Papyrus didn’t want to use his magic on Sans.  He’d done it plenty of times when they were kids just learning how to harness their power and many times since when he’d managed to convince his lazy brother to join him for a sparring session, but this was different.  This felt wrong.  But as the creature stalked shakily towards him, head down and shoulders hunched, he knew there was no other choice.  

Sans’s soul flared into view again, this time colored not with emerald green but with a deep, sapphire blue.  He let out a broken, wavering howl as the blue magic dragged him down.  The creature struggled to escape but only succeeded in digging long furrows into the snowy ground with his claws.  He hissed and snapped, long lower jaw splitting open in a way that made the other skeleton feel faintly ill to witness.  Papyrus could feel his brother’s soul struggling in his grasp.  His faint sliver of health, already diminished by the painful force that had twisted and warped his body, slowly began to fade.  It wasn’t much of a change, but it was proof enough that he couldn’t keep this up forever.  And what’s worse, it was proof that he was hurting Sans.  Papyrus blinked back tears.  

“S-sans … please … “  He inched closer, wincing as the beastly creature’s wild gaze settled on him.  “He’s gone.  You don’t have to do this.  You can come back to us now.  Please,” he begged, “brother … “

Rings of light stared intently at him.  The bright, brilliant blue he’d seen there before was now flickering yellow, the two shades switching back and forth in a maddening strobe of color.  Long jaws parted and a garbled, hissing sound spilled forth.  Panicked, Papyrus tightened his hold, his magic wrapping around his sibling’s soul and dragging it down hard.  The soul beat wildly in his grasp as the flood of blue magic smothered it.  Flickering eyelights guttered out as the creature gave one last pained yowl and collapsed in the snow.

Papyrus let out a frightened yelp of his own.  For just an instant, he was struck with the fear that, in trying to stop his brother from doing anything they might all regret, he might have killed his only remaining family.  But the soul in his grasp remained whole, still clinging to that smallest fraction of life.  Hesitantly, he released his grasp.  Blue magic dissipated, draining away from the magical core that faded back into his sibling’s fallen body.  And then, ever so slowly, he began to change.  

Papyrus gasped and darted forward, scooping the unconscious skeleton into his arms.  The snap and creak of shifting bone echoed in the otherwise silent clearing.  Shrinking spikes that shouldn’t be there dug into his hands as he held his Sans’s too still form tight against his own.  This was just a nightmare.  It had to be.  If he closed his eyes tight and held his breath, surely he would wake up and none of this would have ever happened.  But no matter how many times he counted to ten and tried to shake himself awake, he opened his eyes to the same impossible reality.  Papyrus buried his face in his brother’s ruined shirt and finally released the desperate sobs he’d been holding in. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, an update! ... after two months ... I know, I'm awful. It’s just difficult to really get geared up to write a story, even one you really like working on, when the audience is kinda … not … there? Or, not there the way it was. I believe that so long as one person’s reading and enjoying then it’s worth doing, but there’s no denying that it’s harder to get motivated for that audience of one. So that’s why I’ve been slow, a fact which I’m sure contributes to lack of interest so really I’m the only one to blame for that. Well, regardless, I do want to finish these fics and get them posted when I can. It might take me ages, but I don’t want to abandon my stories. So if you stick with me, I promise I will get to the end (unless something awful happens in which chase I'll let you know) just ... know that it's going to take a while. Okay?

For the second time in as many days, Sans found himself suddenly shocked awake.  Terror gripped him, feelings of pain and helplessness still so real that only the warmly lit room and the grounding reassurance of his brother’s voice close by made him realize that he was truly safe.  At least this time he didn’t remember the nightmare that had inspired them.  He’d had enough nightmares to last him multiple lifetimes already.

Sans pressed his palms against his eye sockets, not quite blocking out the light but dimming it to only the thin beams that peeked through the natural gaps in his metacarpals.  He felt warm, like he’d just stepped into the lava lit caverns of Hotland.  Only, the heat wasn’t coming from glowing magma that boiled away beneath the rocks of their underground prison.  It was coming from inside himself.  Determination raced in his body, searing its way through marrow with every pulse of his soul.  It was a very familiar sensation.  

He could sense Papyrus nearby.  He would have known the other skeleton was there even if he hadn’t spoken a word.  The magic of his soul, tones of blue underscored with a warm orange that Sans would know anywhere, radiated with anxious energy.  Papyrus said something else, though Sans could not catch the meaning of his uncharacteristically quiet words.  He answered with a low groan, channeling all his discomfort, distress, and irritation into a single unquestionably grouchy sound.

Chuckling faintly, Papyrus placed a gloved hand on his skull.  Sans leaned into the touch, drinking in the comparative cool of winter-chilled fabric.  For once, his brother didn’t even complain that Sans was getting sweat on his nice, clean gloves.  And somehow, it was that one seemingly inconsequential detail that tipped the scales.  This wasn’t right.  None of it was.  And unlike the countless resets rewinding time over and over in a hellish loop, this time he wasn’t the only one who knew.  He couldn’t just ignore this and pretend it all away.  It was real.  More real than anything in his life had been for so long.  Laughter bubbled up in his throat, giddy and manic, even as he shut his sockets tight against the sting of rising tears.  Trembling fingers gripped at his skull with the distinctive scraping sound of bone on bone.

The gloved hand against his head tensed but did not pull away.  “Sans?”

As tempting as it was to give up completely and throw the tattered remains of his sanity to the winds, Sans knew he couldn’t do that.  The one and only thing he could never give up on was right there with him.  Even though his very existence was causing his sibling so much trouble, he couldn’t bring himself to entertain the idea of taking the easy way out and leaving Papyrus.  Especially not when Gaster, or some twisted fragment of him at least, was lurking around.  His hysterical giggling tapered off and he let his hands fall away.  His mouth curved into a lazy grin, so well practiced that doing so was nearly automatic.  “i’m fine.”

“You most certainly are not!  You … you … “  Papyrus looked away from him.  He forced shaking fists into his lap and sat there stiffly, his arms as rigid as metal bars.  “Do you remember what happened back there?”

“uh … maybe?”  If Sans was going to be honest with himself, a practice he had a long standing distaste for, he’d have to admit that his memories of the previous day were a jumbled mess.  He didn’t even know for sure if it had been the previous day.  He could have been asleep for hours or days and he’d have no way of knowing the difference.  And what he did remember from before his unplanned nap didn’t make much sense.  He’d seen the thing that had once been Gaster, at least he was fairly sure he had, and even heard what passed for his voice.  But, what then?  Try as he might, Sans only managed to recall snippets of conversation, fleeting flashes of anger and fear, and a sensation so twisted, so utterly  wrong, that he immediately abandoned the train of thought that had let him to it.  

“He did something to you and … and you …  changed.”  Papyrus pulled at the end of his scarf, wringing the ragged fabric into a tight, cord-like coil.  His shoulders shook.  “You almost looked like one of the blasters.”

The fragments of his memories surged forward, breaking through the weak mental barriers Sans had placed around them.  He remembered something pulling at him.  Stretching his body.  Bending his limbs in ways they were never meant to go.  He barely suppressed a gag as the wrongness of it washed over him.  There had been claws, sharp and curved, where his fingers had been.  Long, pointed fangs had crowded his mouth.  His soul had burned.  Stars, his soul was burning!  

Sans hissed a long breath through clenched, blunt teeth.  He flexed his fingers, tangling them in the bedsheets.  There were no claws.  No fangs.  No burn beyond the slowly fading heat of Determination.  It had happened, he knew that no matter how much he wished he could forget, but it was in the past.  He let out a shaky chuckle, hating himself just a little bit more at the pathetic sound of it.  “well … guess that was a thing.”

“Don’t joke about this Sans.”

The older skeleton could count the number of times he heard such a quiet, solemn tone from his sibling on one hand.  He didn’t like it one bit, but it wasn’t like he could argue.  “okay.”

“The queen healed you.  W-well, she tried to.  She said there wasn’t much physical damage left, and that you would need rest to heal your magic.  If it could be healed.”

Ooh.  So that’s what had Papyrus, the poster boy for upbeat optimism, so far down in the dumps that he might as well be underwater.  The dreaded ‘if’.  Sans wanted to reassure his little brother that everything was okay, no questions asked, but he knew that sort of empty reassurance wasn’t welcome here.  Papyrus needed the truth, even if it hurt.  

After a few deep, steadying breaths, Sans summoned his soul.  He let it drift out of him, hovering in the air, and slowly cupped his hands around it.  It felt a bit too warm, but not burning hot like in his unwanted memories.  The glow it cast was the same cool, soothing blue it had always been, the colors shifting together like gently flowing water.  Beneath the pristine white surface was a faint flush of red.  At its core, wrapped around the piece of artificial magic that had become such an intrinsic part of him, Sans sensed the living pulse of Determination.  It would have worried him if it had been an entirely new development, but it was simply stronger than before.  'More’ that it had been.  

Sans ran his thumb lightly across his soul’s pliable surface, checking for cracks and finding none.  It’s light may have been weak in comparison to what he’d normally expect, but it was there.  Unchanged and present.  There was no darkness in him nor any other external force at play beyond things that had been present in him, in one form or another, for so long already.  As far as Sans was concerned, that’s what mattered.  He released the magical core and let it fade from sight, sinking back into his body where it belonged.  The smile that stretched across his features was a bit more relaxed and genuine than it had been.  “i think i’m okay.”

Papyrus sighed, his shoulders dipping in a way that reminded Sans of the air being slowly let out of an overinflated balloon.  “Thank goodness.”

Sans’s eye lights sparked with mischief.  This was a prime opportunity for some familiar, comfortable heckling.  A few bad puns and he’d have Papyrus back to his old screaming self.  He even had the perfect one, a joke so bad yet so perfectly timed that it was sure to derail this awful pity train!  But … he couldn’t.  Papyrus had asked him not to joke about this, and he’d agreed.  No matter how uncomfortable it made Sans to leave the truth there, lurking between them like the ugly specter it was, that’s what he had to do.  His brother needed the truth, even if it hurt.  And maybe, though he’d never admit it, Sans needed it this time too.  

He let Papyrus haul him out of bed, no matter how reluctant he was to abandon the secluded comfort of his room, and even let his brother fuss over him some when he swayed on his feet.  He’d just woken up and he already felt drained, that just wasn’t fair.  Sure, him being low on energy was safer for everyone right now, but if he was going to be forced to take an impromptu transformation-induced nap the least the universe could do was make him feel refreshed once he woke up.  He was still grumbling under his breath about the utter lack of common decency from the forces that be when they descended the stairs leading to the brothers’ overly crowded living room.  

Toriel was camped out on the couch, Frisk sitting at her feet, and Undyne lurked near the window.  Though it looked like the warrior had been keeping watch at her self-designated post, her attention, along with that of the other two in the room, was now firmly fixed on the brothers.  Sans could feel the weight of their gaze pressing down on him, their anxiousness and expectation smothering in the confines of the small house.  He forced himself to wave with the minimum amount of effort that such an action could possibly require.  “hey.”

“Hey,” Undyne replied with forced cheer, her booming voice almost hollow.  “Look who’s up.  Took ya long enough.”

Sans shrugged, tucking his hands into his pockets with a well practiced casual air.  “you know me, can’t resist a good nap.”

Papyrus gave him a little nudge towards the couch where Toriel sat and Sans eagerly took the hint.  He trudged over and let himself fall onto its well worn softness, more grateful that he’d have liked to admit to be off his shaky legs again.  He slouched against the lumpy cushions

Toriel placed a warm, broad hand on his arm, drawing his attention.  “Are you feeling alright?” she asked, her features pinched with worry.  

“ya, i …” the words caught in his throat.  He couldn’t stand the concern in her eyes, a look so very much like the one Papyrus had stared him down with not long ago.  It demanded the truth.  “i’m doing okay.  tired and kinda achy, but okay.”

Frisk hopped up onto the couch, the small human wriggling between them and pressing against his side.  Their small arms wrapped around his waist.  For just a moment, Sans couldn’t help but be afraid.  The atrocities this deceptively small creature had wrought weren’t something that he could easily cast aside.  The swath of death and destruction that they’d carved through the underground had been carved into his soul as well, and not just thanks to the knife that had sliced through his ribs.  He knew just how strong those thin arms truly were.  How they could crush an unsuspecting monster, grinding them into dust.  But the human’s grip was gentle now.  Their tiny hands, clean without the faintest traces of dust, clung to his shirt as if he were the strong one.  

Sans set his hand on their head, running spindly fingers through dark brown hair, and when Frisk looked up at him with that same pleading concern he’d seen from the others it didn’t hurt the way he’d been expecting it to.  “it’ll be alright kid,” he said, soft and soothing.  “we’ll figure this out.”

Undyne cleared her throat in a glaringly deliberate sort of way.  “Hate to break up this sap-fest, but we do have a problem here.”  

Sans sighed, the movement of his hands slowing to the point of stillness.  Damn, he did not want to face this yet.  If ever.  “ya, i know.”

“It really was him,” Toriel said if only to break the uneasy silence threatening to take over.  Her voice was low and soft with barely hidden distress, and Sans couldn’t help but feel all the more guilty for dragging her into this mess.  

“Mister ex-royal scientist.  And apparently your dad.”  Undyne hissed under her breath, running a hand through the thin fringe of crimson hair that had pulled itself free of her tightly bound mane.  “Shit.”  

Papyrus shifted his weight from foot to foot, too anxious to stop moving entirely but unwilling to let other, more obvious nervous habits show how upset this whole thing truly made him.  “He recognized us.  I thought … maybe, that was a good thing.  That he’d stop and listen to us.  But … but he … “  

Though each person present knew what Papyrus was trying to say, none of them stepped up to say it themselves.  Sans didn’t need to look at them to know why.  Whatever it was that had happened to him when he’d changed, it had certainly left an impression.  

Toriel straightened where she sat, the subtle movement easily drawing the attention of those around her.  “Sans, you said that a part of Gaster came back, but not all of him.  If you know something that would be helpful in this situation,” her large hand squeezed his shoulder, a fraction of her true strength making itself known, “I do wish you would tell us.”

Sans fixed his smile in place as surely as if it had been carved in stone.  His eye lights flickered faintly as his gaze darted from person to person.  For a moment he locked eyes with Papyrus and saw his own apprehension reflected back at him.  Then he blinked and it was gone, stowed away beneath so many layers of forced optimism and needless bravado that anyone else could pretend it didn’t exist at all.  

The younger skeleton squared his shoulders, puffing up his chest as if he had something to prove in this room full of their patchwork family.  “I can tell them brother.”

“nah, it’s okay pap.”  Much as it pained him to let an easy out slip by him, Sans knew that there were some things that you just have to do on your own.  Even with his brother’s memory rapidly returning, there were still important things that Papyrus didn’t know.  Things he’d never known, and that Sans had wished he’d never need to learn.  But if letting those demons out was what it took to protect his only remaining family from the thing now stalking him, then so be it.  “it isn’t coming back that did it to him.  hell it wasn’t even the accident that scattered him in the first place.  the old man had lost his soul a long time before that.”

“The hell?” Undyne all but shouted, her jagged teeth bared in a sneer of disbelief.  “If he’d lost his soul, he would have dusted.  No one can survive something like that, not even a boss monster.”

“heh, you’d think so.  but, nope.  ol’ doc was too determined to die.”  Sans snickered at his own awful joke, even though he didn’t find it the slightest bit funny.  “he was researching all sorts of crazy stuff.  powerful magic.  human magic.  things went wrong and, well, turns out that stuff can help you survive just about anything.  even having your soul ripped out of your body and scattered to the far corners of space-time.”

He had no proof that Gaster’s soul had been scattered rather than simply destroyed.  In fact it would have made a lot more sense if the explosion that nearly killed his father truly had ripped his soul to shreds, the essence of his being dissolving away like so much scattered construct dust.  But, no matter how many times he tied to convince himself of the more rational and probably possibility, Sans could never fully believe it.  Gaster’s body had returned, its dispersed fragments coming together and reforming on the cavern floor as the melted parody of a monster that now stalked him.  And Sans was willing to bet everything that his soul had met the same fate.  If only it could reform just as easily.  

“Wait, human magic?”  Undyne’s yellow eyes darted to Frisk for a fraction of a second.  “I saw something when that guy was playing magic tug-o-war with you.  Like a bright red flash.  Was that this 'human magic’ you’re talkin’ about?”

Sans tensed, his teeth pressed together in a grin so tight it felt like his jaw was going to crack.  He’d known it already, logically speaking.  The surge of heat and power he’d felt upon waking, the red pulse within his own soul, the sensation of something so powerful thrumming just below the surface of his own life force, there was no denying that he’d been exposed to a fresh does of Determination.  Still, knowing that on a technical, intuitive sort of level and hearing about it from someone else were very different things.  “ya,” he managed to say, forcing the word out with a flat, empty parody of his own voice.  “that was it alright.”

Frisk’s arms tightened around his waist, their tiny fists clutching the fabric of his shirt.  He thought he heard them whimper, breath hitching softly, but that might have just been his imagination.  Sans didn’t look down at them, he just couldn’t bring himself to, but he did begin combing his fingers through their hair once more.  

“But, how?” Toriel asked in genuine confusion.  “Monster magic and human magic don’t mix.  They can’t.  Not without … “  She trailed off, a flash of something painful shining clear and raw in her eyes.  Toriel knew what it took to truly fuse the power of a monster and a human.  She’d seen it and the thing it had turned her only son into.  

“wish i could tell you, but i don’t understand it all that well myself.  i know he took magic from living souls and separated it out somehow.  that’s what he infused monsters with.  but i don’t know how he got it to work right.  not that it actually did work right very often.”  Sans slouched a bit lower into the couch cushions, wishing he could just disappear into them like a lost button and never be seen again.  

“Okay,” Undyne interjected, hijacking the conversation to steer it away from a topic that had clearly upset everyone else in the room.  “So, he’s soulless because of shady experiments with human magic that, let’s face it, were probably a bad idea from the start.  What I don’t get is how we wound up in this mess to begin with.  After all this time, how’d he come back?  And why now?”

Eager to put all thoughts of DT behind him for as long as possible, Sans latched on to the comparatively safer topic.  “i think it had something to do with breaking the barrier.  he first showed up in the cavern that leads to the surface, right where the barrier used to be.”  He suppressed a little shudder at the thought of that dripping black sludge slowly rising up from the darkness, grinning as it stared at him, eyeless and empty.  “even i didn’t recognize him then, so he must have been … i dunno … still re-forming, or something.”

“But he didn’t have any connection with the barrier.  Did he?”

“not that i know of, but it took a lot of energy to break that thing.”  The energy of seven human souls, to be exact.  More than was theoretically possible for a single being to control.  “maybe, that much power acted as a kind of beacon.  something for all those scattered pieces to latch on to.  and once they were close, they just kinda stuck to each other.”  It wasn’t much to go on, a loose theory at best, but it was the only possible explanation that made any sense.  Nothing happens completely by accident.  There’s always some factor, however small, that sparks a change.  At least that’s what his own experience had taught him.  

Frisk finally released their death grip on his waist, pushing away as they sat up straight.  This time he was sure he heard them whimper as they pressed their face into one baggy blue sleeve.  Sans knew the sound of barely suppressed crying when he heard it.  But why?  What could have made the kid so upset that … ooh.  The barrier.  Frisk had been the one to break it, through means that not even Sans could fully grasp, and now he’d just told them that doing so had caused this whole nightmare.  Well shit.

“hey, don’t you go getting carried away kid.  you did a good thing back there, alright?  i wouldn’t wanna change a thing about how it all ended up, and neither should you.”

Something wordless passed between them, carried along by carefully chosen words and a veiled hardness in the pinpoint lights burning brightly in his sockets.  Frisk met his gaze, their mouth pressed into a thin, trembling line.  They didn’t say a word.  They didn’t need to.  

“Sans is right little one,” Toriel said, warm with motherly sweetness.  “Whatever unintended consequences these past few days might have brought with them, you have done nothing wrong.”  She embraced the small human, wrapping them up in her arms.  “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have hope for a new future.  You fought so hard for all of us.  Now it’s our turn.  We will find a way to fix this, and everything will be alright again.”

Frisk nodded, but Sans could still see a glint of something painful in their guilt-ridden gaze.  They buried their face in the soft purple fabric of Toriel’s dress, hiding against her like the lost child they truly were, reality warping powers or not.  

“Ya,” said Undyne, her own natural boisterousness making her sound a lot more sure than she actually looked.  “You just leave Gaster to us and we’ll send him packing!  We’ve just gotta figure out how.”

“how’d you get the doc to back off this last time?” Sans asked.  He was genuinely curious about how that whole encounter had played out, minus his own involvement of course.  One way or another, they had managed to stop Gaster and free him from the the soulless man’s control.  Sans wasn’t sure if he would be able to sense Gaster’s presence without the other actively trying to channel his magic, but he doubted that the others would be so calm if that goopy horror show of a monster was still lurking around.  

“While I was keeping you out of trouble, these two teamed up and went after him.”  She slung an arm around Papyrus’s shoulders, dragging him into one of her patented affectionate friend noogies.  Sans was glad he’d never been subjected to one of those, they looked like they kind of hurt.  “Good thing too, that slippery bastard was too quick for a solo fighter to hit.  I’ve never seen anybody dodge that fast.”

Papyrus grinned as he managed to extract himself from his friend’s hold.  “Well, we did make a rather formidable team.  I kept him busy so he couldn’t dodge and the queen,” he stopped himself with a frankly hilarious looking flinch,  “sorry, I mean former queen, used her fire magic to defeat him.”

Toriel smiled in a bashful sort of way that made it clear she was likely blushing under her thick white fur.  “I wouldn’t have been able to do much on my own.  But yes, once we were able to corner him, we did manage to do some damage.  It was strange though, he didn’t react like a normal person would.  Perhaps it has something to do with his, umm, 'condition’.  After that, he vanished without a trace.”  She turned her gaze back to Sans, pinning him with tentative hope.  “ Could he have gone back to wherever it is he came from?”

“i … uh, maybe?”  It was possible that Gaster had retreated back to the space beyond space where the parts of his being had been previously scattered.  But, even if that really was where he’d gone, Sans wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.  If he’d come back from there once, who’s to say he couldn’t do it again?  And the thought of someone unbound by the compassion and morality of a soul having free access to both dimensions, well it wasn’t good to say the least.  

Undyne crossed her arms and scowled, no doubt thinking along the same lines as he had.  “Call me paranoid, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of that freak.  No offense.”

“none taken.”

“Wait a second,” Papyrus said suddenly, gesturing with his hands like he sometimes did when a new idea had him all excited.  “Dad, I mean Gaster, lost his soul in the accident.  Sans, you said it was scattered the same way his body was.  So, it still exists in some form, right?”

Sans hunched his shoulders, shrinking down a bit as if that would let him go unnoticed and avoid the direction he suspected this conversation was headed in.  “well, i mean … theoretically.”

“If his soul really is out there somewhere, then … ”  Papyrus turned towards him, light sparking in his eye sockets.  “Brother, do you think his soul might come back the same way his body did?”

“pap … “  Sans felt torn.  He wanted to give his brother hope, wanted it more than anything, but in this case, that kind of hope might do more harm than good.  The chances of Gaster coming back at all had been astronomical, but his soul somehow surviving and managing to come back too?  He just didn’t see how it was possible.  “it’s not that easy.  his body existed without his soul before then, so reforming like that wasn’t a problem.  but a soul with no body?”  

“So we’ll get something that can keep his soul stable until we figure out a way to fix him.  Something like the containment units used to hold human souls.”  Papyrus flinched at his own words, glancing over at where Frisk sat curled up in Toriel’s arms.  “I’m sorry friend Frisk, I didn’t mean to bring that up so carelessly.”

Toriel looked up at him, all attempts at burying her own sadness in order to comfort him proving useless.  “Papyrus, just because something works on a human doesn’t mean it’s going to work on a monster.  A boss monster maybe, if we were incredibly lucky and worked very fast, but other than that?  Monster souls don’t last long after death, you know that.”  

“But this is a special case!  He had human magic, even before the accident.  Maybe he’s used enough of it that his soul will be able to survive, so long as we act quickly.  The pieces of it have lasted this long wherever they are, right Sans?”

“maybe.  there was never a way to know for sure.”  All he’d had were theories.  Hunches.  The nagging feeling that some part of their father had survived despite the odds.  He couldn’t explain it, he simply believed that it was true.  And for Sans, who didn’t believe in much of anything anymore, that really meant something.  But belief hadn’t been enough to change the grim reality he’d found himself in before, and he doubted it would be now.  “pap, just … don’t get your hopes up.  okay?  i already tried everything i could to bring him back and nothing worked.”

“That’s just because you were trying alone.  You don’t have to do that anymore Sans.  We can all remember now, so we can help you.”  Papyrus crossed the gap between them in two long strides and grasped his brother’s hands tightly in his own.  “Together we can do this.”

“And in the meantime, if mister goopy horror shows his melty face here again, queen Toriel and I will kick his ass!”  Undyne punched at the air enthusiastically, as if violently dispersing some phantom image of the man in question.  “He may be a part of your dad and all, but after the shit he pulled, I don’t think we should take any chances letting him get close.”

“Agreed,” Papyrus said cheerily, though his expression softened with worry a moment later.  “Please do try not to kill him though.”

Sans felt something intangible constrict inside him.  The two of them were so excited.  So hopeful.  Even Toriel looked like the self-imposed burden she carried was just a little bit lighter than it had been.  But Sans couldn’t hope the way they did.  They didn’t understand that when he said he’d tried to bring Gaster back, he meant he’d tried everything.  The machine couldn’t be fixed, no matter how many endless days he spent working on it as the flow of time skipped and sputtered around him, and he knew of no other way to even attempt to retrieve what remained of his father from the void beyond their reality.  It was hopeless.  But, as he looked at the smiling faces around him, he couldn’t bring himself to tell them that.  Let them have their hope, he decided.  Hell, maybe they’d be able to see something he couldn’t.  After all, things had changed.  Now they had the convergence point that the breaking of the barrier had created.  Maybe between that and a few more people working on the problem, he’d finally find the breakthrough that had alluded him for so long.  Against his better judgment, Sans started to hope too.  

“okay.  why not.  let’s give it a try.”

Undyne cackled with something akin to manic glee.  “Alright!  Mission 'Soul Retrieval’ is go!  What do we do first?”

“i think we’re gonna need the big guns.”  If this impossible mission had even the smallest chance of success, then they needed to throw everything they had at it.  That included their friends, and there was only one other monster in the underground that Sans would trust with the machine hidden away in his basement.  “you’d better call your girlfriend.”


End file.
